Asem Bhakta Singh, Special Correspondent North East
Imphal: (Waari Sinbul Network) Enormous heavy fuel leaked from a heavy fuel power plant at the Leimakhong area in Kangpokpi disirct on Wednesday night flowed into a rivulet running in adjoining Imphal West district, affecting the villagers .
The fuel, however, didn’t reach major rivers as the rivulet was blocked at several points and got cleaned by various state government departments on Thursday.
The state government , soon after the incident triggered, asked all concerned to make immediate action to prevent an environmental calamity, making use of all available resources.
Chief minister N Biren Singh’s secretary N Geoffrey, in an immediate message, sent to top state civil and police officials said “ Leakage of ‘heavy fuel’ from Leimakhong Power Station has been reported, leading to spillover of the discharge along streams passing through Kantosabal, Sekmai etc.”
The stream meets the Imphal river downstream by flowing through Khurkhul-Loitang, Kameng, Iroisemba and Nambul river, it said.
The message asked all concerned to take “immediate necessary action to prevent an environmental calamity, making use of all available resources in terms of machinery, manpower and expertise.”
While asking to activate response mechanism /SoP immediately, the message said that the Deputy Commissioner of Imphal West district shall coordinate in the field until further instructions.
“It is quite fortunate that the heavy fuel has not reached Loktak lake. We have asked officials to collect samples of the heavy fuel and the contaminated water of the rivulet to conduct laboratory test to determine how the liquids would affect humans, plants and animals, specially fishes,” said chairman of Loktak Development Authority (LDA), Moirangthem Asnikumar Singh .
Necessary measures would be taken after getting the laboratory reports, Singh added.
