Team Herald
VASCO: Questioning the quality of ammonia tanker that got punctured with a slight fall at Chicalim early morning on Friday, forcing hundreds of residents to run for their lives, Vasco MLA Carlos Almeida on Saturday demanded that the agency concerned should investigate the quality of the ill-fated ammonia tanker and other similar tankers used by Zuari Agro Chemicals Limited (ZACL).
“ZACL has been transporting phosphoric acid and ammonia from MPT to its plant at Zuarinagar using tankers. But, I fail to understand as to how the tanker involved in the mishap got punctured with a slight fall. As far as I know, such tankers are specially designed and cannot get punctured so easily. On Friday, the tanker had only tilted and it was not a major accident, but still the tanker started leaking which makes me feel that either the tanker was of substandard quality or they are not checked properly for fitness,” Almeida alleged.
“The incident forced hundreds of people to suffer and thus ZACL needs to be hauled up if they are using substandard vehicles for transporting such hazardous product. I also demand that within a week the South Goa collector along with RTO official should check all the ammonia tankers that ZACL uses for transporting ammonia and phosphoric ammonia,” he said.
Taking a dig at South Goa Disaster Management for failing to handle Friday night emergency, Almeida said, “Yesterday’s incident was very unfortunate and the disaster management totally failed to handle the situation and there was no coordination with all the government agencies. I will personally raise this issue during the forthcoming Assembly Session. Also, the collector should immediately call for a review meeting of disaster management team, conduct more mock drills in the port city which is a hub of several vital installations.”
Meanwhile, it has been reported by some of the Chicalim residents that the plantation in their garden got totally burnt in the ammonia tanker mishap on Friday. A Chicalim resident on a social media post explained in detail about the mishap and even highlighted the failure of disaster management team and ZACL in handling the situation.
Certain pictures highlighting the impact of ammonia leakage to the garden plants that got dried due to ammonia gas shocked all who saw the post. An appeal was also made to the residents to join hands and stop transportation of ammonia if ZACL fails to undertake transportation of ammonia with responsibility and meticulous procedures.
