KazTransGas Says 82 Georgians Died from CO2 Poisoning in 2015-17
By Tea Mariamidze
Wednesday, November 22
(TBILISI)-- Georgia’s largest gas supplier, KazTransGas Company, has revealed that 82 Georgian citizens died and 350 others were subject to severe carbon dioxide poisoning over a two-year period stretching from 2015-2017.
Of those subject to the poisoning, 29 died and 125 others were exposed to toxic fumes in 2016, alone.
The statistics were released by Giorgi Lepsveridze, an engineer and current employee at KazTransGas.
"In order to prevent further incidents like this, the company has launched a campaign where our employees are obliged to visit all of our customers once a year to check the gas installations,” Lepsveridze said in a post, adding that KazTransGas representatives will now advise customers on how to eliminate potential risks and have new devices installed.
“About 30-40% of the population do not listen to our warnings...they continue to use incorrectly installed gas devices,” said Lepsveridze.
According to KazTransGas’ data, most of the reported cases of gas poisoning occurred in flats used as rentals.
“When the carbon dioxide is collected in the repository, about 1% of the accumulated CO2 causes severe poisoning in humans, which can become fatal in only 2-3 minutes,” Lepsveridze added.
