Chemical Disasters

A chemical disaster can be described as an accidental or deliberate (in the case of war or terrorism) release of toxic chemicals to the environment, resulting to damage to the environment and death or injury to animals, plants, workers, or members of nearby communities. These disasters usually occur in a magnitude that is beyond the adapting capacity of the affected communities.

There have been increased use and application of hazardous chemicals in industrial processes across the globe since the turn of the century, with a resultant rise in the number of chemical disasters. Hazardous chemicals in use include acids; toxins; carcinogenic substances; explosives; radioactive materials; and inflammable liquid chemicals that usually result in chemical or thermal burns, systemic toxicity, and injuries from inhalation. Their manufacture, storage, transportation, handling, or use can result in a chemical incident either due to process failures, human errors, natural calamities, or deliberate attacks on facilities. Common chemicals encountered in chemical disasters includes chlorine, natural gas, propane, gasoline, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, nitrous fumes, hydrochloric and sulfuric acids, organophosphates, and a host of others. With all of these chemicals being used, stored, and transported in and through highly populated areas, the probability of a chemical disaster with mass casualties is very real.

In the last century, with increased industrialization, there have been growing lists of chemical disasters across the globe. The Bhopal gas disaster remains one of the world's worst chemical disasters in terms of injury, morbidity, and death. This disaster involved a catastrophic failure at the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), pesticide manufacturing plant in Bhopal, India, when methyl isocyanate leaked from the facility in December 1984. Over 15,000 people died, and 500,000 were injured in the accident to date. Experts point to the lack of safety measures and inferior technology at the plant as the cause of the disaster. The aftermath was also improperly handled by the UCC management as well as Indian government officials, who failed to provide adequate compensation, relief, and rehabilitation to the victims.

Other common examples of chemical disasters include the continuous mercury waste poisoning of fish at Minamata, Japan, which began in 1952, and by 2001 had resulted in nearly 1,800 human deaths; a nuclear accident in 1986 at Chernobyl, Ukraine, requiring the removal of 160,000 people from their homes; a carbon dioxide gas release from a lake in Cameroon, August 1986, which killed about 1,700 people and caused injury to 845 people; and a chlorine release in Mexico in 1981, which was caused by a train colliding with four tanker cars carrying chlorine. It caused 28 deaths with over 1,000 injured.

There have also been cases of deliberate releases of hazardous chemicals in war and terrorist attacks. One of the first major cases was the release of a highly lethal nerve agent (designed to paralyze and kill within minutes) inside a crowded train subway in Japan in March 1995. In that chemical incident, 12 people lost their lives, and about 5,500 more required medical attention. Chemicals used to deliberately kill or incapacitate in warfare or acts of terrorism are separated into three groups: nerve agents, blood agents, and vesicants. Nerve agents are substances that act on enzymes in the body at the muscle-nerve junction, resulting in paralysis and death within minutes. Nerve agents are usually organophosphates; common examples include sarin (used in the Japan train subway incident), taban, and soman.

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