Box 18C Examples of accidents ­ inland transport and distribution

Road tanker accident, Los Alfaques, Spain, 1978

The pressurised cargo tank of an articulated road tanker carrying liquefied propylene disintegrated into three parts which were dispersed widely as it passed a seaside campsite. The tank contained 23 tonnes of liquid propylene, although its permitted load was only 19 tonnes. Furthermore, it was not fitted with a pressure relief device. A total of 217 people, mostly campers, were killed and a further 67 were injured. A discotheque and smaller buildings attached to the camp were demolished and some apartment houses suffered damage. Altogether 74 motor vehicles were damaged, of which 23 were totally destroyed. This Spanish campsite disaster is the worst-ever road accident on record involving the transport of dangerous goods .

The accident still raises many questions about what exactly happened and the precise cause of the human fatalities. Various investigators have put forward different opinions: it could have been a vapour cloud explosion, it could have been a boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion (BLEVE), or it could have been a flashfire.

River Roding insecticide spill, Essex, UK, 1985

A road accident involving a tanker transporting insecticides resulted in about 500 litres of an organophosphorus insecticide (Dursban 4E) being spilt into a tributary of the river Roding in the UK. Despite a prompt clean-up emergency response, the insecticide polluted a 20 km stretch of the river (and within 48 hours elevated concentrations of

the contaminant were recorded in the river Thames). Surveys conducted soon after the accident indicated a higher than 90 per cent mortality of fish and aquatic arthropods in the affected stretch of the river. Some birds were also killed, although no data are available on this. It took about two years to restore the river Roding to its pre-spill condition. Long-term impacts, such as the persistence of chlorpyrifos (the active ingredient of this particular insecticide) in sediments, and potential bioconcentration effects have not been investigated.

Pipeline explosion leading to rail disaster, Siberia, Russia, 1989

The gas pipeline causing the explosion lay to the west of Chelyabinsk and was the main line carrying natural gas liquids ­ a mixture of propane, butane and other components. The explosion occurred just as two trains carrying 1200 people were passing each other on the Trans-Siberian route close to the pipeline. It is thought that gas had leaked from the pipeline, accumulated in pools and started to evaporate; a spark from the wheels of one of the trains ignited it. Consequently, 645 people died in this disaster and about the same number were injured. The then Soviet prosecutors alleged that gross violations of construction and operations rules contributed to the accident. The pipeline had been damaged by an excavator in 1985 and the damage ignored; the pipe was buried and later leaked.