C'garh: 7 paper mill workers fall ill after inhaling toxic gas

Seven workers fell ill, three of them seriously, after inhaling poisonous gas at a paper mill in Chhattisgarh's Raigarh district, police said on Thursday.

The incident occurred at Shakti Paper Mill in Tetla village, where the victims were cleaning a recycling chamber on Wednesday evening, Raigarh superintendent of police Santosh Singh told PTI.

However, the factory owner did not inform the administration about the incident, which came to light after the hospital authorities alerted the police on Thursday, he said.

The mill, located around 250km from state capital Raipur, had remained shut ever since the COVID-19 lockdown was enforced in late March and the cleaning work was underway to resume operations, the official said.

The affected workers were admitted to Sanjeevani Hospital in Raigarh, from where three of them were shifted to Raipur in view of their critical condition, he said.

Prima facie, it seems some toxic gas got generated in the recycling chamber (an open ...