Mystery gas kills 11 in India

NEW DELHI, Apr 30 (BBC/AFP): At least 11 people have died following a gas leak in northern India. Women and children are among those who died in the port city of Ludhiana in Punjab state. Several people were found unconscious in their homes.
The area was sealed off and residents were evacuated after many reported breathing difficulties. Four are being treated in hospital. The source of the leak is not clear so far. One official suggested that gas may have spread from manholes.
PTI news agency quotes Ludhiana Deputy Commissioner Surabhi Malik as saying: "We are going to collect samples from manholes. It is quite likely that some chemical reacted with methane in manholes."
Rajinder Pal Kaur Chhina, a local legislator, told Reuters news agency that the incident had happened near a milk shop. "People who came to buy milk in the morning, fell unconscious outside," she said.
A team from the National Disaster Response Force has been sent to the site, in the Giaspura area of Ludhiana. There are factories nearby. Industrial gas leaks are not rare in India.
Industrial gas leaks blamed on poor safety standards and insufficient checks are common in India. Last August, at least 112 women were hospitalised after a gas leak at an apparel manufacturing plant in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
That followed a similar accident in June when around 200 women fell unconscious after a gas leak in the same area, NDTV reported. In 2020, at least 15 people were killed and hundreds hospitalised after a gas leak at a chemical plant in Visakhapatnam, an industrial port city in the same state.
Nearly 1,000 people were exposed to the gas and over 500 were hospitalised with symptoms of severe respiratory distress and skin and eye irritation. Residents were found slumped in the streets after being exposed to the gas, forcing a large-scale evacuation around the plant.