The Nation - News from June 20, 1988

More than 20,000 people returned home after a two-day evacuation of neighborhoods in Springfield, Mass., choked by toxic fumes from a chemical plant fire that sent 275 people to the hospital. But 4,600 residents were barred from returning to their neighborhood near the smoldering factory that continued to flare up and spew deadly yellow-green gas. The plant makes chloride pellets for swimming pools. Authorities said they would wait until today to pour 52 tons of neutralizing chemicals on the remaining chloride. Fire officials said they continued pumping water on the remains of the Advanced Laboratories plant. Fires began at the pre-Civil War factory when rain blew into a window and reacted with chloride tablets in a hopper, authorities said.