Six workers died on Thursday after allegedly inhaling poisonous gas in an aqua food processing unit at Mogalturu town in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh.
The poisonous gas was suspected to be ammonia, police said. The bodies of five workers have been recovered so far, they added.
According to sources, eight workers went into the sump to clean it and two managed to come out of the sump.
The tank is located over 100 meters away from Anand Aqua Food Processing unit at Nallavari Cheruvu under Mogalturu.
The deceased were identified as Boddu Rambabu (Mettu Revu), Nalla Yedukondalu (Nallavarithota), Ega Yedukondalu (Sitarampuram), Jakkamsetty Praveen (Kalipatnam), Thota Srinivasa Rao (Kattukalva). They belonged to villages in the vicinity of the plant.
The Narsapur Sub Collector Sumith Kumar Gandhi and DSP G Poornachandra Rao reached the spot and inquired about the incident.
Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu spoke to West Godavari District Collector Katamaneni Bhaskar and enquired about the incident. He directed Bhaskar to immediately take up relief measures.
Leader of opposition Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, who has been fighting for quite some time against setting up aqua food parks in the fertile lands of West Godavari district, rushed to the village to call on the families of the victims.
Efforts to contact company officials proved unsuccessful. “All our officials have rushed to the plant,” a staffer at the company head office in Bhimavaram said.
