Mumbai:
Kadir Bukhari and his friends were fast asleep on a barge near the docks of the Mumbai Port Trust where they work when a sharp smell engulfed them.
Kadir instinctively knew they should avoid the port. So, he led the men as they frantically sailed away towards the Gateway of India.
"The driver couldn't see anything so we took help from people from other vessels to drive the barge. At Ferry Wharf, we got into another boat and came to the shore," says Kadir, at JJ Hospital where he's still being treated.
Early on Wednesday morning, a gas cylinder began leaking chlorine at the Mumbai Port Trust. 70 people were hospitalised. (
Read: Who's to blame for Mumbai chlorine gas leak?)
Natarajan - who has worked as a loader at the Port Trust for a decade - was sleeping within feet of where the leak began - at a warehouse for hazardous cargo. The cylinder was among a hundred that were imported nearly 15 years ago, but were confiscated. They've been lying here ever since; nobody checked to see if there was any chlorine left in them. It turns out six of them do.
"I smelt something terrible from the cylinders. I woke up all my colleagues and began running. We ran for what seemed like a long distance and then came to the hospital, dizzy and vomiting," says Natarajan.
They've barely had time to recover, but men like Natarajan will return as soon as they can to the docks that put them at such grave risk. "If we don't work, we won't earn money," Natarajan says.
At the port, the operation to ensure that other cylinders are safely disposed off continue. "Overnight three cylinders containing chlorine gas have been neutralised unto 80%. One cylinder is giving a problem, as its gas valve is not functioning. So neutralising that cylinder is taking time. They will take at least another 24 hours to complete the operation," says Vinay Kajla, Commandant, CISF, Mumbai Port Trust Division.
The police have filed a case of negligence against unknown people, and the Shipping Ministry has asked the Mumbai Port Trust for a detailed explanation on why the leak took place.