Noida, Nov 17 (IANS) Over 50 employees of leading multinational Samsung’s washing machine assembly plant here were taken to hospital after being affected by a gas leakage in the plant Tuesday evening, officials said.

The employees were taken to the local Kailash Hospital where the condition of six of them was stated to be ’serious’.

The accident occurred at the Samsung plant in Sector-81, Phase-II of the township.

According to sources at the unit, the production of washing machines was in progress when around 4 p.m, some workers faced breathing problems and soon everyone’s eyes began to water. Some of the workers even fainted. Operations were immediately halted and workers taken out into the fresh air.

There were about 40 workers inside the production area and around 30 more were working in peripheral work chambers.

A total of 50 workers were taken to hospital.

‘About 50 patients were brought here from Samsung. They were complaining of breathing problems after inhaling some poisonous gas. Most of the patients were rendered immediate first-aid and some of them were discharged after medication,’ said V.B. Joshi, the public relations officer of the Kailash Hospital.

‘About 5 to 6 patients are serious but they are out of danger. They had inhaled more quantity of the gas and were facing trouble in breathing. We are flushing oxygen into their bodies so that the level of poisonous gas inside them decreases and oxygen levels rise,’ he said, adding these patients are expected to recover in the next few hours and could be discharged by Wednesday morning.

Superintendent of Police (City) Ashok Kumar Tripathi said: ‘Our first priority was to provide immediate treatment to the victims. They all are out of danger now. From the initial inspection, it seems that the gas was probably LPG that got leaked from a pipeline in the lift installed in plant. But, we are inquiring more into it and trying to find the exact point of leakage.’