Overview
- Residents near Gangadham Chowk reported choking fumes after midnight Thursday in what fire officials traced to a leaking chlorine tank at a closed godown.
- Fire crews wearing breathing apparatus evacuated nearby homes and patched the tank, then neutralised remaining gas with water and caustic soda.
- Twenty-two residents and two firefighters were taken to Sassoon General Hospital with breathlessness and eye and throat irritation, and all are reported stable.
- A former operator said the water purification unit had been dismantled but the chlorine tank remained on site unattended.
- Pune Police and civic authorities are examining storage lapses and legal compliance at the defunct site, a review that could tighten rules on hazardous materials left at shuttered facilities.