Mumbai BMC says only 29 complaints of 'gas smell', and source unknown

While social media went into a tizzy on Thursday night about foul smell and an alleged gas leak, no city agency has a clue about what happened

Mumbaikars complained of a strange odour on Thursday, with the BMC's disaster cell receiving 29 complaints from all over the suburbs. The authorities, however, have said they were unable to trace the source despite looking for it for hours.

Social media was immediately abuzz late Thursday night owing to this mystery odour. Nine teams of the fire brigade were on their toes all of Thursday night, but none could find where it had started from. While citizens slammed the fire department's inability to find out the source of the odour, some said the smell disappeared after a while, whereas others turned off piped gas connections as a precautionary measure. Mahanagar Gas Limited, too, was on field to detect any leak, but found nothing.

MGL's gas pipelines and RCF units were checked but not leak was found

Explaining the scenario on Thursday night, a fire official said, "The teams were sent to all locations from where complaints had come in. MGL and MPCB, too, were informed. As we did not find any leak at any of these locations, unconfirmed news of a gas leak from RCF came in. After a thorough inspection there as well, we did not find any issue. We have closed the complaints for now and if something comes up again, we will return to the spots immediately."

Pundalik Mirashe, assistant secretary, technical, MPCB, said, "We did receive a call from the fire brigade and we deployed our teams but when our people reached the locations, there was no odour. The complainants, too, said there was no smell anymore." When asked if there was something in the air that could have caused this, he said, "If a vehicle full of a similar kind of material passed through these areas, it might leave behind an odour but all these are assumptions as we do not know if the odour was the same everywhere. It is highly impossible though that it could be anything in the air as it would have stayed on for a bit."

Official speak

mahanagar gas limited, released a statement on Friday, stating: Late evening on September 19, MGL received a number of complaints of gas smell from various parts of Mumbai. Our emergency teams had spread out to the sites but did not come across any breach in our pipeline system which could result in leakage of gas. No new complaints of gas leakage are being reported.

A statement Sanjay Jagtap, deputy general manager (CC&CSR) at the Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers Ltd (RCF) read: A strong rumour was doing the rounds about a gas leak in Powai, Chembur, Chakala and from Goregaon to Mira Road. Some people have alleged that the leak happened in the Trombay unit of RCF. However, there is no incidence of gas leak at any of the RCF plants. Mumbai Police, Fire Brigade and NDRF teams visited RCF Trombay unit and found no gas leak and declared everything normal. All RCF plants are running normal as per standard operating procedures.

Also Read: Mumbai: Citizens complain of gas leak in various parts of city; BMC investigating leak source

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