SANGHAR, April 15: For about a couple of months, teenage brothers Gulzar and Sikandar Shaikh have been suffering from a skin disease characterised by infectious swelling on their faces, arms and legs.

Miaan village where they live is more than 100-year-old and situated next to the Sinjhoro Oil and Gas Plant, managed by the Sui Southern Gas Company, from where thick smoke and nauseating gases are emitted round the clock.

Situated 12 kilometres from Sanghar city, the Sinjhorno Oil and Gas Plant started functioning a little more than four months ago. Since then, a lot of people living in the surrounding areas were observed to have developed skin and eye diseases, respiratory infections and hearing problems.

At the further end of the Miaan village where Shaikh brothers reside, lives a locally-well-known veteran kabaddi player, Sher Bhatti, who also developed health problems since the gas plant started functioning.

Mr Bhatti told Dawn that the smoke emitting from the plant chimney irritated his eyes, weakened his eyesight and had also caused respiratory problems.

Meanwhile, 50-year-old Saifal, complained of rashes and constant itching on his body. Another resident of the same village, Gul Mohammad, shared that he had also developed respiratory infections and had to spend Rs3,000 every two weeks for going to get treated in Nawabshah.

In fact, not only residents, the smoke emitting from the gas plant has also caused a number of goats, oxen and peacocks to die as well, besides damaging flora and fauna in nearby areas.

According to a herdsman, Hakim Ali Shah, from nearby Mehmood Shah village, 12 of his adult goats and 10 young goats had died within a month. He said that goats that grazed close to the gas plant had runny noses, released excessive saliva from their mouths and had gotten weaker.

Another man, Lal Bux Mari, shared that three of his pet peacocks had died and an equal number were sick.

Moreover, villagers shared that besides emitting toxic smoke, heavy machinery at the plant made a lot of noise. People living in the village, which is without electricity, are disturbed by noise emerging from the plant which becomes almost unbearable in the dead of the night.

When Dawn made repeated attempts to contact the field manager of the gas plant at his office in Sanghar city, the call was dropped.

According to local estimates, the plant produces 11 million cubic feet of natural gas and more than 50,000 litres of crude oil every day. Between 4 to 5 million cubic feet of natural gas is burnt every day to maintain the pressure, and the by products are released in the smoke.

When contacted, Sanghar deputy commissioner said that he did not know about the spread of diseases in villages surrounding the Sinjhorno gas plant and its adverse environmental impact. He said that some time ago, he had met the local community whose members had requested to be provided with jobs in the plant.

However, the villagers said that they had refused jobs offered to them by the plant management, even at good posts.

They demanded that the government carry out an environmental impact assessment of the gas plant and provide treatment to the ailing people.