Two dozen children in hospital after chlorine poisoning at Russian swimming pool

Astrakhan Governor Igor Babushkin, left, visited the children at the hospital on Monday

Credit: Astrakhan Governor Press office via Alamy

More than twenty children have been hospitalised in Russia after swimming in a pool containing vastly too much chlorine. 

Six of the children are in ‘grave condition’ on oxygen support or in intensive care, said officials from the city of Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea. A further 13 are in stable condition. 

Investigators believe the poisoning occurred after 25 times the correct level of chlorine was released into the water. 

Eyewitnesses told Russian television on Monday that visitors noticed a strong stench of chlorine and started gasping for air shortly after a warm-up at the start of a swimming class for children. Some of the children reportedly ran away in panic to other parts of the building while others rushed outside into the cold.

“They were all undressed, coughing and sneezing,” Tatyana Volokitina, a mother of one of the children, told Russia’s Channel One. “My heart was breaking for them.”

Another mother told the Rossiya 1 channel that her husband was lucky to come to the pool to get their children early that day.

“When he came in to pick up the kids, he sensed a stench of chlorine, ran out of there with the kids and saw an ambulance outside,” the unnamed woman said.

Igor Babushkin, the Astrakhan governor, visited the children at the local hospital on Monday and said that their lives “are not in danger thanks to the professionalism of our doctors as well as prompt medical assistance.”

Leonid Kravchenko, the chief physician of the local children’s hospital, told Channel One that some of the children can expect to fully recover and be discharged within a couple of days.

A video released by local emergency services showed emergency responders dressed in hazmat suits taking air and water samples at the empty Dynamo pool which has been shut down at least until the end of the year.

Experts established that 25 times the usual levels of chlorine were released into the water that morning, local emergency situations chief Alexei Murzin said in televised comments.

Authorities had no immediate explanation for the abnormally high chlorine levels and are preparing to bring charges against the pool’s owner.

The pool’s management was not available for comment on Monday.