Over 100 women working at an apparel unit in Andhra Pradesh’s Anakapalle district fell sick on Tuesday after inhaling some poisonous gas whose source and cause remained shrouded in mystery. This was the second such incident at Brandix India Apparel Company (BIAC) at Atchutapuram in less than two months after the last one left around 300 women unwell.
Over 4,000 women were working at BIAC on Tuesday. Those affected complained of nausea, headache, cough and suffocation. Some of the women fainted and were treated at the factory initially before being taken to nearby hospitals. Their condition is said to be stable. Tension prevailed in the area. In the last such incident on June 3, some of the 300 women who fell ill were pregnant. A probe was carried out but there is no word so far on what caused that gas leak.
On Tuesday, Brandix India Apparel said in a statement that some workers had complained of an “unpleasant odour” and were taken to hospital as a “precaution”. “The safety and well-being of our associates is of utmost importance and we have evacuated all of them. The affected associates are in a stable condition,” the company added.
Anakapalle police chief Gowthami Sali inspected the unit and said the cause of the “mishap” was yet to be ascertained. Earlier in June, a private lab, Porus Laboratories Private Ltd — located inside an Andhra government-run industrial complex — was asked to stop the operations after a gas leak that affected staff at an adjacent apparel unit, Seeds Intimate Apparel, in Visakhapatnam’s Moturupalem area.
