JOHOR BARU, June 25 — Four of the 30 chemical factories, which were short-listed by the enforcement authorities for inspection, following the incidents of breathing difficulty and vomiting in Pasir Gudang since Thursday, were inspected by the state Department of Environment (DOE), this afternoon.

Bernama, which also followed the operation, found that three of the factories inspected were chemical factories while one was a recycling plant for scheduled wastes.

The inspection, which started at 11am, involved eight personnel of DOE.

All the factories inspected were estimated to be located four to five kilometres from Sekolah Agama Taman Mawar, the first school to be hit by the incident.

Based on observation, DOE used equipment such as Multirae Lite Gas Detector and a GASMET machine to record air quality outside the factories. 

DOE could quickly detect the presence of dangerous gases using the Multirae Lite Gas Detector, before following it up with the GASMET machine which could detect 48 types of gases emitted by the factories.

"GASMET is the most advanced machine used to detect main gases and, to date, we only have two units,’’ said the DOE officer heading the operation who declined to be named.

He said that such operations would continue to be conducted in the next several days to identify the gas which caused the breathing difficulties among the students and pupils at several schools lately.

"The operation (air quality reading examination) would also be done by HASMAT from the Fire and Rescue Department to ensure we can cover more factories,’’ he said.

Yesterday, Menteri Besar Datuk Dr Sahruddin Jamal said that 30 factories in Pasir Gudang would be investigated in the effort to identify the source of the pollution in the area. — Bernama