Shoham residents given all clear as ammonia leak brought under control

Residents of a town in central Israel were given the all clear Sunday morning after being instructed to stay indoors and keep thier windows closed and air conditioners off earlier due to an ammonia leak discovered in a nearby factory.

Residents of Shoham, near Ben-Gurion International Airport, were told that the chemical leaking from the Osem plant in the nearby Hevel Modiin industrial zone would not be dangerous from hundreds of meters away, but to take precautions anyway.

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Several firefighting and hazardous material teams were called to the scene and were still working in hazmat suits to contain the leak after 2 a.m. Two people were lightly injured from inhaling the toxic fumes.

The ammonia leak is the latest of a series of chemical leaks in the last few weeks. On Wednesday, a parking lot at Hadassah Ein Karem hospital in Jerusalem was blocked off after a container with chemicals was found leaking, according to Walla news.

A day earlier, a plastics plant near Haifa was found releasing dangerous chemicals, and earlier in the month a shipment of chemicals from Belgium were found to be leaking at Ben-Gurion airport.