NAfter an explosion in a chemical park in Leverkusen, the fire brigade and police forces found three other people dead from the rubble on Thursday. Cologne police and prosecutor’s office announced. This means that the death toll caused by the accident has risen to 5 people, and the whereabouts of 2 people are still missing. Currenta, the operating company of the chemical park, no longer wants to find her on Wednesday. 31 people were injured in the accident, of which one was seriously injured.
After the fire extinguishing work at the accident site is completed, investigators can now begin to trace the cause of the explosion. On Tuesday morning, three storage tanks containing waste produced by customers in the chemical park exploded at the site of a hazardous waste incineration plant. There is solvent in the tank.
The North Rhine-Westphalia Environment Agency announced on Thursday that the findings of the leaked substance will be announced on Friday. At the Dioxin Laboratory in Essen, the traces of soot falling from the Leverkusen area are still under inspection. The environmental protection agency assumes that “dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls and furan compounds” are brought into the surrounding residential areas through the smoke. However, the concentration of these compounds is still unclear.
“Usually these substances are not highly toxic”
Martin Wilkes, director of the Swiss Center for Applied Human Toxicology, said that such possible hazards are difficult to define. The degree of danger depends on the type and temperature of the fire. “Usually these substances are not highly toxic, but they are suspected of causing chronic damage to health,” Wilkes said. “They can gather near the fire site, but they can also spread to large areas with smoke and contaminate soil and plants.” Therefore, it is also important to monitor the area. Leverkusen is doing this, and the city’s warnings continue to apply. Amusement parks in certain areas of the city are still closed. Ashes cannot be brought into the apartment, and the fruits and vegetables in the garden cannot be eaten temporarily. Also avoid using garden furniture and swimming pools, and if possible, only wear gloves when working in the garden. The city announced that the operating company, Currenta, will handle the cleaning of streets, sidewalks and house entrances in a “timely” manner.
The Cologne Public Prosecutor’s Office also launched an investigation into an unidentified person, initially suspecting that “negligence caused an explosion and manslaughter”. The deployment of the fire brigade and police at the scene of the accident is likely to continue for several days.
In recent years, the number of accidents in the chemical park has decreased, but they have occurred repeatedly. The last major incident was the 2016 explosion at the BASF Chemical Company in Ludwigshafen. The accident killed 5 people during maintenance work. Two years later, an explosion occurred at the Bayern refinery in Fort Worth, injuring 16 people. In 2012, a fire broke out in the Mar Chemical Park in the Ruhr District, killing two people. The largest chemical accident in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany occurred at BASF: an explosion in Ludwigshafen in 1948 killed 207 people.
