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Air Pollution Episodes: Meuse River Valley, Belgium

The document summarizes several major air pollution incidents between 1930 and 1984, including details about location, main pollutants, health impacts, and causal factors. The worst incidents were the Meuse Valley disaster in 1930 which caused 60 deaths, the Donora smog in 1948 which led to 20 deaths, and the Bhopal disaster in 1984 which resulted in immediate deaths of 2,000 people and injuries to over 300,000. Common factors included temperature inversions trapping pollution, various industrial emissions like sulfur dioxide and chemical leaks, and lack of adequate safety standards and response.

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214 views9 pages

Air Pollution Episodes: Meuse River Valley, Belgium

The document summarizes several major air pollution incidents between 1930 and 1984, including details about location, main pollutants, health impacts, and causal factors. The worst incidents were the Meuse Valley disaster in 1930 which caused 60 deaths, the Donora smog in 1948 which led to 20 deaths, and the Bhopal disaster in 1984 which resulted in immediate deaths of 2,000 people and injuries to over 300,000. Common factors included temperature inversions trapping pollution, various industrial emissions like sulfur dioxide and chemical leaks, and lack of adequate safety standards and response.

Uploaded by

Rohan Chaugule
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© © All Rights Reserved
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AIR POLLUTION EPISODES

• Meuse Valley (Belgium) - 1930


• Donora, PA - 1948
• Poza Rica (Mexico) - 1950
• London - 1952
• New York - 1953 to 1966
• Bhopal (India) - 1984

Meuse Valley-Belgium, 1930


• 1st modern air pollution disaster
• River valley
• Densely populated
• Highly industrailised
• Winter, high barometric pressure
• Sore throats, shortness of breath, cough, phlegm, nausea, vomiting
• SO2, sulfur dioxide
• H2O
• SO4 sulfuric acid mist
• Cattle, birds and rats died
• Got little news coverage

1930: Meuse River Valley, Belgium


• An inversion led to a high concentration of pollutants during a period of cold,
damp weather
• Main sources: zinc smelter, sulfuric acid factory, glass manufacturers
• calm winds, strong inversion close to ground, fog, smoke from factories
• Pollution trapped in lowest 70-80 m of a narrow valley
• 600 very ill, 60 deaths

Donora, Pennsylvania—Oct. 1948


• Monongahela River Valley
• Industrial town—steel mill, sulfuric acid plant, freight yard, etc.
• Population—14,000
• Steep hills surrounding the valley
• Oct 26—temperature inversion (warm air trapping cold air near the ground)
• Stable air, fog, lasted 4.5 days
1948: Donora, Pennsylvania
• Similar inversion to Meuse River Valley
• Main sources: iron and steel factories, zinc smelting, and an acid plant
• 20 deaths observed

Poza Rico, Mexico 1950


• Single source– high sulfur crude oil
• Hydrogen sulfide (H2S)
• Flare went out
• Inversion in valley
• 22 sudden deaths, 320 hospitalized
• All ages
• Forerunner of Bhopal

December 1952 Great London Smog


1952: London
• Killer fog (right)
• Primary source: domestic coal burning
4,500 excess deaths recorded during week- long period in December
• Some of the worst events in the last two centuries occurred in London
– Key ingredients: calm winds, fog, smoke particles from coal burning
– 1873 - 700 deaths
– 1911- 1150 deaths
– 1952 - 4000 deaths
• Last event led to the Parliament passing a Clean Air Act in 1956
• Cold front, Londoners burned soft coal
• Factories, power plants
• Temperature inversion
• 5 days of worst smog city had ever seen
• Public transportation stopped
• Indoor concerts had to be cancelled because no one could see the stage, etc.
Seveso, Italy –Dioxin
• July 10, 1976, north of Milan
• A valve broke at the Industrie Chimiche Meda Societa Azionaria chemical plant
• Cloud of 2,3,7,8 tetrachlorodibenzo-para-dioxin (TCDD) traveled southwest through
Seveso toward Milan
• Contaminant of herbicide
•
Bhopal, India Dec. 3, 1984
• Union Carbide pesticide plant leak kills up to 2,000 with up to 350,000 injured and
100,000 with permanent disabilities
• Methyl isocyanate (MIC)—used as an intermediary in manufacture of Sevin (Carbaryl)
• CO + Cl = phosgene
• Phosgene + methylamine = MIC
• MIC—irritant to the lungs---edema, fluid (cause of death, bronchospasms, corneal
opacity
• Hydrogen cyanide?
• Sabotage or industrial accident?
• The accident
• • 41 T of MIC and its reaction products
• released
• • Cold winter midnight of 2nd – 3rd December 1984
• • Between 00:40 and 02:30 AM approx.
• • At 30m (100ft) height
• • Moved as a 10m (30ft) high wall
• • Covered residential areas, main
• hospitals, railway station, 65 sq. km. area
• (25 sq. miles) C o n t d …
• •Approx. 8000 immediate deaths, over
• 200,000 suffered
• • Over 12000 more died since, over
• 120,000 still suffering
• • UC continued to deny any long-term
• effects
• the first time in recorded human
• history that almost a whole town was
• gassed in peace time.’
• (Wil Lepkowski, C&EN, Feb. 11, 1985)
•

• Around 1 a.m. on Monday, the 3rd of December, 1984, In the city of Bhopal, Central
India, a poisonous vapour burst from the tall stacks of the Union Carbide pesticide plant.
• This vapour was a highly toxic cloud of methyl isocyanate.
• 2,000 died immediately
• 300,000 were injured
• 7,000 animals were injured, of which about one thousand were killed.
THE POSSIBLE CAUSES
• A tank containing methyl isocyanate (MIC) leaked.
• MIC is an extremely reactive chemical and is used in production of the insecticide
carbaryl.
• The scientific reason for the accident was that water entered the tank where about 40
cubic meters of MIC was stored.
• When water and MIC mixed, an exothermic chemical reaction started, producing a lot of
heat.
• As a result, the safety valve of the tank burst because of the increase in pressure.
• It is presumed that between 20 and 30 tonnes of MIC were released during the hour that
the leak took place.
• The gas leaked from a 30 m high chimney and this height was not enough to reduce the
effects of the discharge.
• One of the main reasons for the tragedy was found to be a result of a combination of
human factors and an incorrectly designed safety system.
• A portion of the safety equipment at the plant had been non-operational for four months
and the rest failed.

UNION CARBIDE’S VERSION..


• “ A disgruntled plant employee, apparently bent on spoiling a batch of methyl isocyanate,
added water to a storage tank”.
-------B. Browning Jackson
(Vice President)

THE WEATHER EGGED ON THE PROCESS…


• The high moisture content (aerosol) in the discharge when evaporating, gave rise to a
heavy gas which rapidly sank to the ground.
• A weak wind which frequently changed direction, which in turn helped the gas to cover
more area in a shorter period of time (about one hour).
The weak wind and the weak vertical turbulence caused a slow dilution of gas and thus allowed
the poisonous gas to spread over considerable distances

LAPSES ON THE PART OF THE GOVERNMENT


• The Madhya Pradesh State government had not mandated any safety standards.
• Union Carbide failed to implement its own safety rules.
• The Bhopal plant experienced six accidents between 1981 and 1984, at least three of
which involved MIC or phosgene.
Eight public hazard incident in the middle of 20th century
Incident name Main pollutant Time and place Poisoning state Formation cause

Meuse River Dust and SO2 Belgium， Thousands people Concentrated factory 、large
Valley smog December of attacked，about 60 dust emission；abnormal
1930 dead weather, temperature inversion
and heavy smoke happen
Donora Air Dust and SO2 Donora of About 43% in 4
Pollution America， days （about 6000
Episode October of 1948 people ）invaded，
17 people dead

London smog Dust SO2 London of 4000 people dead in


incident UK, ，December 4 days
of 1952
Los Angeles Photochemistry Los Angeles of Vehicle waste gas, weather
photochemistry smog America，May conditions such as sunlight
incident to November and calm wind
every year

Minamata methyl mercury Kumamoto, Some people dead Waste water containing Hg
incident Japan found found in 1953； entered sea and polluted fish,
Minamata in 180 people invaded seashell
1953 in 1972 , 50 people
dead

Tomiyama Cadmium Tomiyama, Shet The patients exceed Spelter works wastewater
incident valley found 280 from 1931 to containing cadmium polluted
（ostalgia 1972, 34 people drinking water and farm land
disease） dead

Yokkaichi time SO2,hevaay Yokkaichi of （asthema）500 Plenty of SO2, dust containing


metal, dust Japan in 1970 people have heavy metal discharged from
disease，10 people factory
dead
rice bran oil polychlorinated Aichi-ken More than 5000 Due to bad management
incident biphenyl country, Kyrshu patients,16dead and polychlorinated biphenyl was
of Japan in 1968 10000 people mixed into rice bran oil
affected

Major incidents in the US


• 1948, October 30–31, Donora, PA: 20 died, 600 hospitalized, thousands more stricken.
Lawsuits were not settled until 1951.
• 1953, November, New York: Smog kills between 170 and 260 people.
• 1954, October, Los Angeles: heavy smog shuts down schools and industry for most of the
month
• 1963, New York: blamed for 200 deaths
• 1966, New York: blamed for 169 deaths
Major U.S. Air Pollution Episodes of Historic Significance
• 1960s - NYC had several severe smog episodes
• 1950s onward – LA had many smog alerts from an increase in industry and motor vehicle
use
• Led to passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970 (updated 1977 and 1990)
– Empowered Federal Government to set emission standards that each state had to
meet

• In the 1940s, citizens of the car-dominated Los Angeles basin complained about a white
or sometimes yellow-brown haze that made their eyes tear.
• They referred to this irritation as "smog."
• The word was taken from a combination of "smoke" and "fog," a term purportedly coined
in 1905 by Dr. H.A. Des Voeux of London ’s Coal Smoke Abatement Society.
• Primarily from automobile emissions, is composed of a complex of carbon monoxide,
hydrocarbons, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, waste heat, and aerosols (liquid droplets,
solid particles, and other various mixtures of liquids and solids suspended in air).
• Tropospheric ozone, located a few feet above ground, is another significant component of
smog.
• On July 26, 1943, in the midst of World War II, Los Angeles was attacked -- not by a
foreign enemy, but a domestic one -- smog.
• The Los Angeles Times reported that a pall of smoke and fumes descended on downtown,
cutting visibility to three blocks.
• Striking in the midst of a heat wave, the "gas attack" was nearly unbearable, gripping
workers and residents with an eye-stinging, throat-scraping sensation.
• It also left them with a realization that something had gone terribly wrong in their city,
prized for its sunny climate.
Photochemical smog / LA smog
process by which ozone is being created at low altitudes – ground level
encountered in automobile rich cities – with specific climatic conditions
• History
– mid-1940s - repeated occurrence of heavy injury to vegetable crops in the Los
Angeles area - traced to high concentrations of ozone that appeared to be created
at low altitudes
• Impacts
– Impaired visibility
– Eye and respiratory system irritants
– Damage to lung tissue
– Vegetation damage
– Contribution to acidic deposition
– Materials destruction (rubber and some plastics)
• As early as 1959, eye irritation was reported in Los Angeles County on 187 days; in
1962, 212 days. A typical car produced in 1963 (without pollution control devices)
discharged 520 pounds of hydrocarbons, 1,700 pounds of carbon monoxide, and 90
pounds of nitrogen oxide for every 10,000 miles traveled. In 1966, 86 million of
approximately 146 million tons of pollutants discharged into the air in the United States
was attributable to motor vehicle traffic.

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