50 students hospitalized following ammonia leakage in Khon Kaen

Khon Kaen - Some 50 students who were attending a scout camp were hospitalized early Sunday after they inhaled ammonia leaked from an adjacent ice making shop.

The accident happened at 1 am at the MP ice making shop near the Wat Klang Municipality School in Muang district.

About 570 students from Grade 7 to 10 were staying at the school as part of their scout camping.

The 50 students were rushed to several hospitals nearby and the rest of the students were moved to Kaen Nakhon Withayalai School, which is about 300 metres away.

-- The Nation 2009/12/13

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I hope they make a full recovery.

Seems like a lot of industrial type accidents lately and a fair number of people hospitalized.

My daughter has just been on another scout camp. There were 15 schools participating making a total of 900+ pupils. If this scout camp was of similar size they were lucky it wasn't more than 50 casualties. I think I'll start paying closer attention to just where these camps take place in future.

The news report says that the camp was at the school. So the chemical leak occurred next to the school.

I can hardly wait until they build a nuclear power plant. That should be a real gas.

I can hardly wait until they build a nuclear power plant.

I know you're joking.

Please, tell me you're joking . . . .

Don't worry, they will use contractors.

You gotta' love this country. Can't sell alcohol, cigarettes or sex near a school, but you can have a toxic factory next door!

Zoning regulations?

You gotta' love this country. Can't sell alcohol, cigarettes or sex near a school, but you can have a toxic factory next door!

Zoning regulations?

Hub of accidents!

I am not sure if I'm joking or not. I thought it was a good idea for Thailand to have nuclear power, but with their track record for messing things up, it's a little scary. Even if they have contractors and preferably foreign contractors with experience in this particular area, it won't do much good if they put that darn thing in the middle of a populated area--or allow housing units to be built next to it after it's built.

I think there are other threads on the nuclear issue.

I don't think they should allow factories next to schools or vice versa. This country really needs zoning regulations--that are enforced.

Wat Klang School is my daughter's school. She is in the Girl Guides but was too young for this camp as she is Prathom 6 and the camp was for Mathayom.

But she did say on Friday afternoon they had moved all the desks in her classroom to the wall so the children could sleep on the floor.

The ice company (not a shop, a large company with ice delivery vans in and out all day) is literally next door to the school and to my certain knowledge this is at least the third time an ammonia leak has happened.

I don't know which is worse, 3,400 children (it's a big school) being gassed during the day time when they can be quickly evacuated, as happened previously, or hundreds of children affected overnight when they're asleep.

My daughter has extra lessons on a Sunday and we collected her from outside school at 4pm this afternoon and the guides were coming out to go home as normal, so the camp must have carried on after the scare.

It's unlikely that any information will be relayed back to the parents from school, but if it does I'll report back further.