An ammonia gas leak at a seafood processing and export factory in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu on Sunday killed at least two women and required hospital treatment for more than 60 others, according to state government and health officials. The incident occurred at a privately owned shrimp facility in Kannigaipair village, near Periyapalayam in Tiruvallur district, roughly 50 kilometres north-west of Chennai.

Most of the affected workers were migrant women from the eastern states of Odisha, Jharkhand and Assam, who were staying in accommodation on the factory premises. Because Sunday is the usual weekly holiday at the unit, the majority were resting indoors when the gas—used as a refrigerant in industrial cooling systems—spread from a processing area into the residential quarters, causing severe respiratory difficulty, nose and mouth bleeding, and loss of consciousness. The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) deployed a specialised chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) team to contain the leak, and officials later said that water-washing operations had neutralised residual ammonia, with no detected spread to nearby residential neighbourhoods.

While Tamil Nadu’s chief minister, C. Joseph Vijay, and district authorities initially confirmed two deaths, Indian news outlets, including The Times of India and Gulf News, subsequently reported that the toll had risen to seven. Tiruvallur’s collector, S. Kavitha, said nine of the most critically ill patients had been transferred to the Government Stanley Medical College Hospital in Chennai. Several victims, many of them young women in their early twenties, remained on ventilator support late into the night, health officials told local journalists. Residents who spoke to news agencies IANS alleged the plant had been operating without proper licences for a decade and had a history of releasing ammonia at night, though these claims could not be immediately verified.

The state government has formed a three-member inquiry committee comprising officials from industrial safety, pollution control and public health, ordering an interim report within 24 hours and a final report in three days. Police have arrested the factory’s owners on preliminary charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and the chief minister announced compensation of 200,000 rupees (approximately £1,900) for the families of the deceased. A districtwide inspection of all hazardous industrial units has been ordered. The exact cause of the leak remains undetermined, with initial assessments pointing to a possible valve failure on a pipeline connecting the main ammonia storage tank to the processing floor. The death toll may be revised as several patients remain in critical condition.