'The cause of gas leakage has become a mystery'

KARACHI: The National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH) recently demanded that the federal and Sindh governments should shun their mutual differences and immediately deploy the most advanced scientific means to investigate the cause of the mysterious gas leakage in the Kemari area of Karachi that has claimed several lives so far.

In a recently issued statement, NFEH President, Naeem Qureshi lamented that the provincial government and its environmental watchdog, despite the lapse of two days, was yet to deploy the resources required to ascertain the exact cause of the mysterious gas leakage in the Kemari area.

The delay in the deployment of the scientific and modern investigative means had a direct bearing on the survival and safety of the area’s people as they continued to suffer owing to the unexplained phenomenon, said the NFEH President.

Naeem said that the deaths and hospitalization of people living in the area should have alerted both the relevant federal and provincial authorities to deploy all possible means to investigate the cause of the unrelenting tragedy. Additionally, they should collectively take the due precautionary measures to cope with such a disastrous emergency, he added.

“The federal and provincial governments do not seem to be on the same page to collectively deal with this mysterious disaster”, he noted.

Qureshi said that once the real cause of the tragedy was scientifically ascertained, it was imperative that the due safety procedures and protocols should be adopted in the handling, storage, and transportation of the hazardous material in the Karachi Port area to safeguard the health of the area’s inhabitants.

He urged the Karachi Port Trust to render their utmost cooperation to the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency in its pursuit to ascertain the cause of the tragedy in the Kemari area.

He feared that findings of the investigation into the Kemari tragedy, once concluded, would be hushed up in the same manner as had been the case with the oil spill incident off the Mubarak Village coast back in 2018.

-MN Report