WALVIS BAY - Operations at Seaflower fishing company in Walvis Bay had to be stopped due to a gas leakage yesterday.

As a result, seven employees of the company were also hospitalised due to the exposure.
Seaflower CEO Adolf Burger confirmed the incident yesterday afternoon, saying that a gas-operating forklift leaked gas.

He added that a consultant was called in early yesterday morning after people in a certain area in the factory got sick and had to be taken to a local hospital. 

“The consultant detected a high level of gas in the area in which at least 40 people works.  We also contacted a company in Swakopmund that has experts on flow of air that will sent our designs to Windhoek to provide us with an engineering opinion as soon as possible,” Burger said. 

He said they have detected the problem yesterday afternoon and found out that the forklifts did not have a device that is supposed to breakdown carbon monoxide into water, hence the leaking gas. 

According to Burger, they had to stop both their vessels as well as fish processing operations when they became aware of the situation to protect the employees. 
Employees now have to stay home until it is safe for them to return to work.

“Our main priority is the safety of our employees, hence we had to immediately stop our operations following the gas leakage. We have also contacted the company that we bought the forklifts from and they will sent the missing devices on Monday to us,” he said.