'Minuscule technical leak' at Vizag factory; situation under control: Officials
New Delhi: A "minuscule technical leak" had occurred at the chemical factory in Andhra Pradesh's Visakhapatnam where styrene gas leaked in the early hours of Thursday but it was controlled and the process of neutralisation is on, officials said on Friday.
Teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) are on the ground to support the local administration.
A Union home ministry official said media reports stated that there was a second gas leak at the Visakhapatnam factory late on Thursday night.
"It is clarified that this was a minuscule technical leak. It is required to bring the container in control. It has been controlled and the process of neutralisation is already underway. The situation is under control," the official said.
The teams of NDRF and NEERI are on the ground to support the local administration, according to the official. The Centre on Thursday said 11 people died and 1,000 were exposed to the gas leak at the chemical factory.
At least 25 people are in a critical condition after being exposed to the gas, officials had said.
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Hamas accepts cease-fire proposal for Gaza, but Israel's stance still uncertain
Jerusalem, May 6: Hamas announced Monday it has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal, but there was no immediate word from Israel, leaving it uncertain whether a deal had been sealed to bring a halt to the seven-month-long war in Gaza.
It was the first glimmer of hope that a deal might avert further bloodshed. Hours earlier, Israel ordered some 100,000 Palestinians to begin evacuating the southern Gaza town of Rafah, signalling that an attack was imminent. The United States and other key allies of Israel oppose an offensive on Rafah, where around 1.4 million Palestinians, more than half of Gaza's population, are sheltering.
An official familiar with Israeli thinking said Israeli officials were examining the proposal, but the plan approved by Hamas was not the framework Israel proposed.
An American official also said the US was still waiting to learn more about the Hamas position and whether it reflected an agreement to what had already been signed off on by Israel and international negotiators or something else. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity as a stance was still being formulated.
Details of the proposal have not been released. Touring the region last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had pressed Hamas to take the deal, and Egyptian officials said it called for a cease-fire of multiple stages starting with a limited hostage release and some Israeli troop pullbacks from Gaza. The two sides would also negotiate a “permanent calm” that would lead to a full hostage release and greater Israeli withdrawal, they said.
