List of chemical disasters

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A chemical disaster is the commonly used term for a devastating accident in which toxins are released. The uncontrolled release of toxic or harmful substances causes a significant part of the total damage to people and the environment .

Poison disasters can be triggered by a one-off, sudden event or the result of a lengthy process. The released substances can often cause damage to the population (e.g. increase in cancer cases ) or the environment years or decades later .

List of chemical disasters

The following events have not been included in the list below :

  • Events caused intentionally or approvingly by acts of war or in armed conflict.
  • Disasters with petroleum and natural gas products
  • Accidents during the transport of dangerous goods
  • Fire and explosion disasters.

These events can be found under the See also links.

In addition, due to the restrictive information policy of the former Eastern Bloc countries and the People's Republic of China , this list is incomplete outside the countries of Western Europe.

Events that occurred suddenly

date event place Country Cause of accident Released substance Dead (at least) Injured (at least) Further damage
September 21, 1921 Explosion of the Oppau nitrogen works Oppau Germany explosion Decomposition products of ammonium sulfate nitrate 559 > 1900 Most of the houses in Oppau were completely destroyed.
May 20, 1928 Stoltzenberg scandal Hamburg Germany explosion Phosgene 10
July 28, 1948 Tank car explosion at BASF Ludwigshafen am Rhein Germany explosion Dimethyl ether , "poisonous gases" 207 3818
July 11, 1968 Chemical accident in Bitterfeld Bitterfeld GDR explosion Vinyl chloride 42 > 200
June 19, 1969 Fish deaths in the Middle Rhine in June 1969 Middle and Lower Rhine ( Netherlands ) Germany Unexplained Endosulfan Not known Massive, extensive fish deaths
June 1, 1974 Flixborough disaster Flixborough England explosion Cyclohexane 28 89
July 10, 1976 Seveso luck Seveso Italy Uncontrolled chemical reaction "Dioxin" TCDD No Many farm animals perished
3rd December 1984 Bhopal disaster Bhopal India Uncontrolled chemical reaction Methyl isocyanate and the like a. 3800
November 1, 1986 " Major fire of Schweizerhalle " (warehouse of the then Sandoz company , now Novartis ) Schweizerhalle near Basel Switzerland Fire Approx. 30 tons of extinguishing water contaminated with pesticides (e.g. atrazine , disulfoton ) No Fish and eel deaths from the fire site on the Upper Rhine over the entire Upper Rhine to the Middle Rhine (approx. 300 km)


October 23, 1989 Explosion in the Houston Chemical Complex at Phillips 66 Houston United States Fire and explosion Polyethylene 23 314
July 21, 1992 Fire at the Allied Colloids company Low Moor, Bradford England fire Azobis (isobutyronitrile) (AIBN) No Fish deaths (10,000 fish)
April 25, 1998 Los Frailes mining disaster Aznalcóllar Spain Dam break Heavy metal- containing tailings No Fish death
January 30, 2000 Baia Mare dam breach Baia Mare Romania Dam break Tailings containing cyanide No Fish deaths in the Tisza
September 21, 2001 Explosion in Toulouse Toulouse France explosion ammonia 31
December 25, 2003 Chuandongbei gas explosion Gaoqiao People's Republic of China Gas well explosion Natural gas , hydrogen sulfide 191 > 4000
April 23, 2004 Explosion of a PVC plant from Formosa Plastics Illiopolis , Illinois United States Fire and explosion 5 5
January 6, 2005 Graniteville railway accident Graniteville , South Carolina United States Train accident Chlorine gas 10
March 23, 2005 Refinery explosion in Texas City from the company. British Petroleum (BP) Texas City United States Fire and explosion 15th 170
November 13, 2005 Jilin chemical accident Jilin People's Republic of China explosion Aniline , benzene , nitrobenzene 5 Fish deaths in the Sungari
4th October 2010 Kolontár dam breach Ajka Hungary Dam break Red mud 10 150 Fish death in the Marcal
17th April 2013 Explosion in the West Fertilizer Company West , Texas United States explosion Ammonium nitrate 14th
August 12, 2015 2015 Tianjin Blast Disaster Tianjin People's Republic of China Explosions Sodium cyanide , calcium carbide and possibly others 173 797
5th November 2015 Bento Rodrigues dam breach Mariana , Minas Gerais Brazil Dam break Heavy metal- containing tailings approx. 20 Fish deaths in the Rio Doce
17th October 2016 Accident at BASF in Ludwigshafen in 2016 Ludwigshafen am Rhein Germany Sawing the wrong pipe 7th 28
March 22, 2018 Explosion at a petroleum refinery the company. Unipetrol Kralupy nad Vltavou Czech Republic explosion 6th 2
May 7, 2020 Gas leak in a plastic factory of LG Chem Visakhapatnam India Gas leak Styrene 13 > 1000
4th August 2020 Explosion disaster in the port of Beirut Beirut Lebanon Explosions 2750 tons of ammonium nitrate 130 5000 Severe devastation, 300,000 people homeless

Long term events

date event place country root cause Released substance Affected
1788-1985 Chemical factory in Marktredwitz Marktredwitz Germany Soil contamination from the operation of a chemical company Mercury compounds Employee
1932-1968 Minamata disease Minamata Japan Sewage Methyl mercury Over 2,000 affected persons were recognized; over 3,000 people may have died as a result of the poisoning.
1950 – today Itai-Itai disease Toyama prefecture Japan Waste water from mining operations cadmium
1965 – today Gressenich disease Stolberg Germany Contamination from lead smelter Cadmium and lead
(1952–1981) Summer 2012 – today HCB scandal in the Görtschitztal Görtschitztal , Carinthia Austria Soil contamination probably through the use of HCB-contaminated blue lime from the Donau Chemie landfill in the Wietersdorf cement works Hexachlorobenzene (HCB)

Defense measures

For disaster prevention, not only disaster control has the appropriate equipment, but also the fire brigade and the THW have equipment to deal with such an incident through the hazardous goods train . For chemical transport incidents, the chemical industry launched the TUIS project. Directive 96/82 / EC (Seveso II Directive) was issued by the European Union in order to prevent large-scale incidents in hazardous businesses.

See also

literature

  • Nikolai A. Behr: The development of the Rhine protection regime with special consideration of the Sandoz accident of November 1, 1986 . Brain-Script Behr, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-9808678-0-3 .
  • Stefan Böschen: “Catastrophe and Institutional Learning Ability”. In: Lars Clausen u. a. (Ed.): Terrible social processes. Theory and Empirical Disaster . LIT-Verlag, Münster 2003, ISBN 3-8258-6832-X .
  • Lars Clausen et al .: Second hazard report by the Protection Commission at the Federal Minister of the Interior . Federal Office of Administration, Central Office for Civil Protection, Bonn 2001 (Civil Protection Research / New Series; Vol. 48).

Web links

 Wikinews: Chemical Spill  - In The News

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Explosion disaster shakes BASF ( Memento from July 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ a b Forgotten environmental stories - The air - a gas field. Retrieved March 26, 2020 .
  3. ^ A b Case Details> Disaster of Chemical Plant at Flixborough. Retrieved March 26, 2020 .
  4. ↑ BUWAL Bulletin 3/1996
  5. ^ Swiss Re: Insurance against environmental damage ( Memento from June 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), p. 7.
  6. ↑ a b China: More than 190 dead in gas accident . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed March 26, 2020]).
  7. ^ US Chemical Safety Board: Formosa Plastics Vinyl Chloride Explosion .
  8. ↑ a b Mark Kaszniak, Donald Holmstrom: Trailer siting issues: BP Texas City . In: Journal of Hazardous Materials . tape 159 , no. 1 , November 2008, p. 105–111 , doi : 10.1016 / j.jhazmat.2008.01.039 ( elsevier.com [accessed March 26, 2020]).
  9. ↑ Petra Kolonko, Beijing: Chemical accident: environmental disaster in a Chinese metropolis . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed March 26, 2020]).
  10. ↑ a b Toxic sludge: tenth victim died in the hospital. November 5, 2010, accessed March 26, 2020 .
  11. ↑ CNN: Victims of Texas plans explosion list of victims from April 25, 2013.
  12. ↑ Tianjin explosion: China sets final death toll at 173, ending search for survivors. The Guardian, September 12, 2015, accessed September 12, 2015 .
  13. ↑ Tianjin Death Toll up to 129. China Radio International, August 24, 2015, accessed on August 24, 2015 .
  14. ↑ a b Explosion: Six people die in a chemical accident in the Czech Republic . ( handelsblatt.com [accessed April 5, 2018]).
  15. ↑ a b More than 1000 people injured in a serious chemical accident in India . ( faz.net [accessed August 12, 2020]).
  16. ↑ a b What is known about the explosions? ARD-aktuell / tagesschau.de, August 6, 2020, accessed on August 6, 2020 .
  17. ↑ HCB in Görtschitztal - Purchased feed makes milk inconspicuous ( Memento from December 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), Wirtschaftsblatt, November 30, 2014, accessed December 25, 2014.