The directorate revealed that a chlorine gas leak occurred in the water station of Sayed Malik village in the Numaniyah district of Wasit governorate.
The Civil Defense statement added: “Our teams at the Numaniyah Civil Defense Center, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Iyad Shawhan, assistant officer of the center, were able to stop the gas leak after the head of a 1000-kilo gas bottle failed. .
Ozone instead of chlorine
Regarding the reasons for the occurrence of chlorine gas leaks in some water purification plants in Iraq, the Iraqi academic and director of the Institute of Water and Energy Strategies, Ramadan Hamza, said in an interview with “Sky News Arabia”: “In developed countries, drinking water purification is now adopting advanced technologies such as ozone, but Iraq is like others. From developing countries that unfortunately still depend on the method of disinfecting drinking water, through the addition of chlorine, which is a method fraught with the risk of gas leakage in desalination and water purification plants. Therefore, it is necessary to shift towards the use of ozone gas for the purposes of filtering and sterilizing water for drinking, instead of using Chlorine gas and powder to sterilize drinking water, which usually result in accidents.
dilapidated infrastructure
The environmental and water expert adds: “Iraq suffers from a significant deterioration in the infrastructure of projects, including water projects, and for this reason, the cause of such serious accidents is due to corrosion and damage to the valve of gas cylinders, and rust because of their old age and the lack of maintenance of these cylinders and their replacement with new ones, which explains what the gas cylinders are witnessing. Water purification in Iraq from time to time from accidents of chlorine gas leakage due to the end of the life of these cylinders and their expiration date, as well as due to operational errors and technical neglect, which may cause disasters and cases of suffocation and poisoning.
Chlorine gas
According to the World Health Organization, chlorine or chlorine is a greenish-yellow gas that has a distinctive odor similar to the smell of bleach, and it is approximately three times heavier than air, and therefore it collects in low areas, and it is not explosive, but it may enhance the explosion of other substances.
Chlorine damage and symptoms of poisoning with it
The most common routes of exposure are through inhalation and exposure to the eyes, and skin infection may occur after exposure to condensed gas or through close proximity to the liquefied gas release site under pressure.
The main symptoms of poisoning with it are:
- Cough with the production of sputum (sputum or sputum) in large quantities.
- Feeling of suffocation, shortness of breath and chest.
- Runny secretions from the nose with a roughness of the voice.
- Nausea, vomiting, headache.
- Pneumonia and non-cardiogenic pulmonary edema, which may be delayed for up to 12-14 hours.
- Lack of oxygen and cardiac arrest with irritation and burning in the eyes and increased secretion of tears and spasm of the palms with burns in the cornea and icing of the fingers.
Experts say that chlorine is a volatile gas, so it has a direct effect on the eyes and respiratory system, which are the main organs targeted by chlorine gas.
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