November 1986 environmental disaster in Switzerland
The
Sandoz chemical spill
was a major
environmental disaster
caused by a fire and its subsequent extinguishing at
Sandoz
agrochemical storehouse in the
Schweizerhalle
industrial complex,
Basel-Landschaft
,
Switzerland
, on 1 November 1986, which released toxic agrochemicals into the air and resulted in tons of pollutants entering the
Rhine river
, turning it red.
[1]
The chemicals caused a massive mortality of wildlife downstream, killing, among other animals, a large proportion of the
European eel
population in the Rhine,
[2]
although the situation subsequently recovered within a couple of years.
[3]
Among the major resulting water pollutants were
dinitro-ortho-cresol
, the organophosphate chemicals
propetamphos
,
parathion
,
disulfoton
,
thiometon
,
etrimphos
and
fenitrothion
, as well as the organochlorine
metoxuron
.
[4]
The cause of the blaze was never established.
[5]
In 2000,
Vincent Cannistraro
, a former senior U.S. intelligence official, stated that the Soviet
KGB
had ordered the East German
Stasi
to sabotage the chemical factory. According to him, the operation's objective was to distract attention from the
Chernobyl disaster
six months earlier in the Soviet Union.
[6]
[7]
[8]
The Swiss authorities were considering opening investigations again.
[7]
[5]
[
needs update
]
No evidence of this presumed sabotage has ever surfaced.
[
citation needed
]
As a consequence of the incident Sandoz extended its health, safety and environment activities and introduced new procedures for risk and emergency management, including auditing.
[9]
Notes and references
[
edit
]
See also
[
edit
]
47°31′56″N
7°40′15″E
/
47.53222°N 7.67083°E
/
47.53222; 7.67083