Stratford’s Aquatic Centre had a “major incident” on Wednesday morning in which a large quantity of chlorine gas was released from a blue lorry due to a chemical reaction.
The leak left a lot of people coughing and struggling to breathe. The Aquatic Centre is famous for hosting events at the 2012 London Olympics. The London Fire Brigade confirmed that around 200 people including swimmers, children and staff were evacuated from the scene.
The London Ambulance Service issued a statement saying, “We sent a significant number of resources including 13 ambulance crews, advanced paramedics, two medics in fast response cars, two incident response officers, a medical incident advisor and members of our Hazardous Area Response Team (HART). We also dispatched medics from London’s Air Ambulance. Our crews took 29 patients to the hospital and assessed a further 48 patients at the scene. The majority of patients were reporting minor breathing difficulties.”
According to the Telegraph, “the leak happened when the facilities management company took a delivery of pool chemicals.”
Upon arriving on the site, Rising East reporter Khadijat Akande could still smell traces of the chemical reaction. The blue lorry which carried the acid was still there hours after the incident.
The police sealed off the area redirected people to safety. The fire brigade had to ventilate the whole area to make it safe for the community once again. The centre plans to reopen on Thursday or Friday.