At least five people were killed and hundreds were taken to hospitals following a gas leak in a chemical plant in southeast India, Indian police announced Thursday.
"We can now confirm that five people have been killed," said Swaroop Rani, an official at the Visakhapatnam police in Andhra Pradesh state. He added that "at least seventy people are absent from consciousness, and between two hundred and 500 people in total are being treated."
"At least a thousand people in areas surrounding the gas leak site have been transferred to public and private hospitals in Visakhapatnam," doctor P. Ka Nike, district hospital coordinator, told AFP, explaining that the death toll could be much higher.