Fear of gas leak forces Iloilo folk to evacuate

ILOILO CITY – At least 80 residents of Maasin, Iloilo spent the first night of the new year at the town hall where they sought refuge for fear that a chlorine leak at a nearby water treatment plant would trigger an explosion.

The evacuees were mostly residents of the community surrounding the sedimentation basin of the Metro Iloilo Water District (MIWD) in Barangay Buntalan.

They returned to their homes yesterday morning after authorities assured them that there was no danger of an explosion resulting from the chemical leak.

Engineer Warren Palermo, of the MIWD’s operations department, told The STAR at noon yesterday that they had contained the gas leak Tuesday night, several hours after it occurred.

“We buried the one-ton cylinder containing the highly corrosive liquid to prevent any further leak,” he said. The MIWD uses chlorine to treat the water it supplies to its consumers.

Palermo downplayed the accident, saying the leak was only within a 10-meter radius, and did not even escape the compound.

He added that it has no effect on the potability of the MIWD’s water supply.