Kidderminster UK, July 28-- Kidderminster's biggest carpet factory was evacuated when 25 litres of acid spilled onto a warehouse floor, filling a warehouse with pungent fumes, according to the Express and Star.
Forty firefighters were called to Brintons' Oldington factory last night and spent more than four hours dealing with the spillage of peracetic acid inside the building.
Production was halted while 17 firefighters wearing chemical outfits and breathing apparatus contained the spillage, neutralised it and cleaned it up.
Sub officer Jim Richards said today: "We had to evacuate the warehouse, but there were only a few night shift workers in there at the time. Luckily the nearest house is half-a-mile away so we did not have to consider evacuating any homes."
Crews from Kidderminster, Stourport, Bewdley, Droitwich and Bromsgrove were called to the factory at 9.30pm, after a worker smelled fumes from the spillage in the latexing department. Some of the crews stayed there until 2am today.
Eddie Gardiner, Brintons' company secretary, said today: "An employee detected an odour and notified management, who immediately evacuated the few personnel in the area and started an investigation. The fumes had become pungent so the emergency services were called."
Gardiner said the acid, used to clean latex storage tanks, was stored in an acceptable manner but the seam in the base of the container had failed.
"Spillages in that area are contained and can only run off into an underground effluent tank so there was no risk of leakage to the ground or drains. The Environment Agency has indicated its satisfaction that everything was handled in an acceptable manner."
