"An ammonia pipe 100 mm in diameter was damaged by a truck while it was maneuvering in the factory's compound," said Yevgeny Bobylyov, press spokesman of the Moscow emergencies department. "Liquid ammonia spilled out onto an area of about 100 square meters as a result. One man was fatally injured."
Rescuers poured water to settle down poisonous gas escaping from a pipe in the factory's refrigeration system and to reduce its concentration in the air, and ammonia supplies have been cut off.
Another emergency official said the concentration of ammonia in the air was above the norm at the moment, but was not life threatening already.
The injured worker was hospitalized after the accident at the Mikoyanovsky meat processing factory which took place at about 2:20 a.m. Moscow time Thursday (10:20 p.m. GMT Wednesday). The driver and the forwarding agent have fled the scene.
A group consisting of police and emergency officials has been set up to investigate the accident and to determine why the pipe was not protected by fencing.
A previous ammonia explosion occurred at a cold storage facility in Moscow in April 2004, when three people were injured in a fire caused by a major ammonia leak.
