After Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy instructed the authorities concerned to ensure that the evacuees of the LG Polymers gas leak moved back to their residences, people were seen returning to their homes, here on Monday.
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Life is limping back to normalcy in the affected areas, after the officials declared that it was safe to return home.
Massive sanitation activities have been going on in the lanes of RR Venkatapuram, SC/ BC Colony, Padmanabhanagar and a few other areas that were affected by the styrene monomer vapour leak.
Municipal sanitary staff were engaged in cleaning the surroundings and water was being sprinkled with tankers to reduce the residual vapour density in the air.
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Police who had locked the houses to prevent thefts were unlocking them in various areas.
Autorickshaws mounted with loud speakers were moving around making announcements on cleaning the houses properly, before settling down.
The Chief Minister had also asked the Group of Ministers to stay in the villages on Monday night, to instil confidence among the residents.
Lack of essentials
The family of Y. Mahalakshmi of the SC Colony who had moved to their relatives house after the vapour leak in the early hours of Thursday returned to their home on Monday morning.
“On May 7, at around 3.30 am, we ran to save our lives. We stayed in our in-laws house for the past few days. After coming to know that the air quality has improved, we came back today morning,” said Mahalakshmi.
Families were seen cleaning their houses, utensils, clothes and other things in the house.
“We can sense pungent smell from the rice. We do not have vegetables, milk and proper drinking water. Officials should provide us these essentials. As of now, we have brought some bottles of water from the shelter home where we stayed,” said A. Ramana, a resident of RR Venkatapuram.
Precautions
GVMC Commissioner G. Srijana, who visited the areas on Monday morning, said that the civic body had been cleaning the area including roads and bylanes and drains. Bleaching powder was being sprinkled.
“Internal cleaning like draining of overhead tanks, mopping with disinfectants, disposing vegetables and food items which were exposed to the vapour leak are being advised,” she told The Hindu .
Ms. Srijana said villagers need not worry as the GVMC would be provide drinking water and food to the villagers once they are back.