Air pollution disasters including Seveso disaster and great smog of Delhi with the cause of these disasters ans their effects on human health, public property and environment

1. Air Pollution Episodes
and Disasters
Deeksha sharma
M.Sc. Sem I

2. Seveso, Italy, 1976, july 10

3. Location :
Small Italian town
of Meda, 20 km
from Milan in
Lombardy region
of Italy.
• Named
because Seveso,
with a population
of 17,000 in 1976,
was the
community most
affected.

4. • The Seveso disaster was
a chemical accident on 10 July 1976.
• There was an explosion at a chemical factory
which released a lot of
the toxic poison dioxin, TCDD, into the air.
• The cloud of poison gas covered an area 6 km
long and 1 km wide.
• It resulted in the highest known exposure
to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD)
in residential populations.

5. • The company where the accident happened
was called Icmesa, who is owned by Roche.
• Icmesa produced Trichlorophenol, which is
used to produce
the disinfectant Hexachlorophene.

6. • The affected area was split into zones A, B and R in
decreasing order of surface soil concentrations of
TCDD.
• Within days a total of 3,300 animals, mostly poultry
and rabbits, were found dead.
• Emergency slaughtering commenced to prevent
TCDD from entering the food chain, and by 1978 over
80,000 animals had been slaughtered.
• 15 children were quickly hospitalised with skin
inflammation.
ZONE SOIL CONC RESIDENTS
Zone A > 50 µg/m2 736
Zone B Between 5-50 µg/m2 4700
Zone R < 5 µg/m2 31,800

7. • By the end of August, 1,600 people of all ages had
been examined and 447 were found to suffer from skin
lesions or chloracne.
• 14 years after the accident the most evident adverse
health effect ascertained was chloracne (193 cases).
• Thirty years after the accident, scientists reported that
babies born in the area affected by the dioxin were six
times more likely to have thyroid problems.
• An excess mortality from cardiovascular and
respiratory diseases was uncovered, and excess
of diabetes cases was also found.
• In 2009, an update found an increase in "lymphatic and
hematopoietic tissue neoplasms" and increased breast
cancer.

8. • The waste from the clean up of the plant was a
mixture of protective clothing and chemical
residues from the plant.
• This waste was packed into waste drums
which had been designed for the storage
of nuclear waste.
• In 1982, the firm Mannesmann Italiana was
contracted to dispose of the contaminated
chemicals from Zone A.
• On September 9, 41 barrels of toxic waste left
the ICMESA premises and were disposed in a
approved way.

9. • In September 1983, the Criminal Court of
Monza sentenced five former employees of
ICMESA, to prison sentences ranging from 2.5
years to 5 years.
• In May 1985, the Court of Appeal in Milan
found three of the five accused not guilty; the
two still facing prosecution appealed to the
Supreme Court in Rome.
• On May 23, 1986, the Supreme Court in Rome
confirmed the judgment against the two
remaining defendants, even though the
prosecuting attorney had called for their
acquittal.

10. Delhi, India, 2016 nov 1-9

11. Location:
•Bordered by
Haryana on three
sides and by Utter
Pradesh to the east.
• the National
Capital Territory of
Delhi, is a city and a
union territory of
India.
•The NCT covers an
area of 1,484 sq kms.

12. • New Delhi ties for first place, along with Beijing,
China, for having the world’s worst air.
• The Great Smog of Delhi is marked as one of the worst
visualization of how bad air quality had become
in New Delhi and adjoining areas between 1 to 9
November 2016.
• Air Pollution at this time peaked on both PM 2.5 and
PM 10 levels.
• Delhi is one of most heavily polluted citie of india,
having the country’s highest volumes of particulate
matter pollution.

13. • During the reported Smog in Delhi. On Nov
7th, 2016 the PM 2.5 levels shot up to 999 ,
while recommended is 60 micrograms.
• At the same time PM 10 shot to 999, instead of
the recommended limit of 100.
• The reading for 999 was the maximum that
could be measured by the pollution monitors
and was possibly more.
• Visibility had reduced to about 200
meters around Nov 7th, 2016

14. Air pollution in delhi is mainly caused by-
• Industries
• Primary sources of smoke being those from the
burning of crop stubbles, lit garbage and road
dust.
• This period also coincided with Diwali, which is
celebrated by firing firecrackers.
• Colder weather, stagnant winds trapping the
various sources of smoke.
• New Delhi is in the middle of the country
therefore it does not receive the coastal breeze to
clear out air pollution.

15. • Breathlessness
• Chest constriction
• Coughing
• Irritation in eyes
• Asthma
• Allergy
• Increase in respiratory and heart diseases

16. The Chief Minister of Delhi at that time, Arvind
Kejriwal came out with the below
proposed action items to attempt reduce the air
pollution:
• For the next 5 days, no construction and
demolition work took place in Delhi.
• All diesel generator were banned for the next
10 days, except at hospitals and in emergencies.
• Vacuum cleaning of roads were started from
November 10.
• The controversial odd-even traffic scheme.

17. • On November 25, 2016, the Supreme Court of
India banned the sale of firecrackers in Delhi to
alleviate pollution.
• In another measure, the Badarpur power plant
was remain shut until January 31, 2017. The
power plant is very old and polluting, and
even before the Great Smog, environmentalists
had advocated for its permanent shutdown.
• The Environment department will launch an
app to monitor the burning of leaves.