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| Ongoing protest to demand the closure of Coromandel's fertilizer plant |
On 26th December, ammonia gas leaked from a sub-sea pipeline of the Coromandel International Limited cement plant in Ennore. The winds carried the fumes to Periakuppam, a settlement next to the Coromandel factory. There, news of the leak was passed on by people to each other, knocking on doors, calling on the phone. People hurried out of their neighborhood in autos, 2-wheelers, and on foot. Many fainted and were admitted to government hospitals. There were 52 recorded cases of ammonia poisoning.
The next morning people from 33 settlements of Ennore started a protest demanding the permanent closure of the Coromandel plant. On the first day, people from each of the villages stood on the main road outside their village. On subsequent days, they started sitting outside the gate of the Coromandel factory. The plant has been a polluter for a long time, but this time, "we were face to face with death", said one protester after another. Their protest is ongoing and is now in its sixtieth day.
We talk to Lynal, a protest organizer from Thazhankuppam, one of the 33 settlements.
