A municipal worker fumigates a community in Noida, India, May 5, 2020.Photo:Xinhua

At least five people have been killed and 1,000 hospitalized after a gas leak at a chemical plant on the east coast of India, authorities said Thursday, warning the death toll would climb.

Gas leaked out of two 5,000-ton tanks that had been unattended due to India's lockdown which has been in place since March, according to a local police officer.

Footage on Indian television channels showed people, including women and children, lying in the streets of Visakhapatnam, an industrial port city in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

"We can confirm at least five deaths right now. More will be confirmed later," Swaroop Rani, an assistant police commissioner, in Visakhapatnam, told AFP.

B K Naik, a district hospital coordinator, said that at least 1,000 people had been sent to different hospitals and it's feared that many others are still unconscious in their homes. 

"Another thing is that it is still too early in the morning and there are people who were sleeping inside their homes [around the gas leak] and are unconscious," Naik told AFP.

"We are working to get people to the hospital. They need oxygenation and fresh air."

Pictures taken by AFP at the King George Hospital in the city showed two or three patients on each bed, many of them children, and unconscious. 

Some of the patients were lying on beds in the sparse hospital wards wearing just shorts and no shirts or shoes.

The plant operated by LG Polymers is located in the outskirts of Visakhapatnam. The city and the surrounding areas are home to around 5 million people.

AFP