SEVESO, THE DIOXIN DISASTER

AKSHIT ARORA(201)
YASH BHAYANI(202)
Introduction
 It was 10th July 1976.
 The ICMESA plant (Industrie Chimiche Meda Società
Azionaria)
 A plant that manufactures intermediate chemicals
for Herbicides, Cosmetics & Pharmaceutical
industry
 The Seveso disaster was so named
because Seveso was the community most affected.
Seveso is a small town with a population of
17,000 in 1976.
What Happened
1. On 10th July 1976 12:37 PM a bursting disc on a
chemical reactor ruptured
2. Maintenance staff heard a whistling sound and a cloud of
vapor was seen to issue from a vent on the roof. A dense
white cloud, of considerable altitude drifted offsite.
3. Duration of hazardous discharge: 20 minutes.
4. A complex mixture of chemicals weighing 3 tonnes were
discharged into the air.
5. This had terrible effects, AFFECTING EVEN UNCONCEIVED
HUMAN BABIES.
What were the chemicals Released into
the Air??
 Hydrogen was the propellant that quickly helped the
chemicals spread out into the air.
 Highly toxic 2,3,7,4 tetrachlorodibenzo - p - dioxin
which is known by the trivial name of ‘dioxin’
and as TCDD
 sodium salt of trichlorophenol.
 sodium glyoxides.
 Sodium oxalate
THE REACTIONS INSIDE THE REACTOR
ON A NORMAL DAY
 What went Wrong on the Judgment Day of Seveso??

1. Seveso Plant used the heat from the steam turbine to help in providing the
activation energy for the above reaction.
2. BUT A REGULATION IN ITALY REQUIRED THAT PLANTS HAD TO
COMPLETELY SHUT DOWN FOR WEEKENDS, THIS WAS THE ROOTCAUSE
THAT HAD LED TO THE ERROR.
3. This led to a shutting down of parts and processes without shutting down the
steam turbine(steam turbine is also being used for electricity generation)
4. The reaction turns exothermic after breaching 230 deg C.
5. Many other batch processes were shutdown in a similar fashion. This led to
overheating.
6. Reaction became exothermic
 At controlled temperatures dioxin produced is
normally seen only in trace amounts of less than
1 ppm
 In the higher-temperature conditions, TCDD
production apparently reached 100 ppm or more.
 The production cycle was interrupted, without any
agitation or cooling, allowing a prolonged holding
of the reaction mass.
 There was no device to collect or destroy the toxic
materials as they vented. The manufacturer of the
bursting disc recommended the use of a second
receiver to recover toxic materials. No such vessel
was fitted.
Reactor diagram
 Bad Effects of Dioxin
 FIRST 7 years: Changed Sex Ratio from 62% for girl
babies and 38% for baby boys.
 Direct or Indirect Exposure from 1976-1991:

36589 people exposed to disaster:

- 5.7 % of Exposed got cancer.
- Breast Cancer
- Lymphatic and hematopoietic risk.
- Extreme Chloracne( Facial acne from Chlorine)
4% of local farm Animals DEAD!!
AFTERMATH EFFECTS
Reactive Measures by Italy After
Disaster
 80000 Animals killed to avoid the spread of dioxin
& further mutations in genes.
 Within 3 Wks: 736 people living in vicinity of plant
evacuated.
 Law was bent to allow abortions, there were mass
abortions by pregnant women to avoid malformed
children.
 Eating local agricultural produce was banned.
 15 children were quickly hospitalized with skin
inflammation.
 447 were found to suffer from skin lesions
or chloracne
Consequences
 Herwig von Zwehl (Technical Director of ICMESA)
and Paolo Paoletti (director of production at
ICMESA) were arrested.
 Two government commissions were established to
develop a plan for quarantining and
decontaminating the area, for which the Italian
government allotted 40 billion lire.
Background
 Only in 1972, ICMESA tried to use the incinerator for
burning phenol and establishing a water treatment
plant.
 Would never tell regulators, what chemicals were being
manufactured. If Regulators persisted with questions,
ICMESA used connections in bureaucracy to undercut the
regulatory bodies.
 TCP(Tri chloro phenol) which caused the accident wasn’t
even known in the records of the government until the
disaster happened. ICMESA had kept TCP a secret
operation.
 Reasons
 According to law, ICMESA needed to have its plant far
away from human civilization.
 Regulators were required to be informed if TCP, Phenol
etc. were produced. But ICMESA didn’t do so.
 Employees were not educated about the risks of the
chemicals they were handling.
 No employee safety training nor booklets issued.
 Lack of proper safety training by managers which led
to inefficiency by the employee.
 ICMESA was totally a careless organization with
regards to safety.
Chloracne
Withered Leaves
Disaster Map