The fire brigade and police can now draw a line under their commitment to the chemical accident in the port of Mannheim. At the chemical company BASF, the search for the cause of the escape of toxic gases from the accident container is only just beginning.
Mannheim (dpa / lsw) – A week and a half after the chemical accident in the port of Mannheim, the last barrels were recovered from the accident container. The emergency services began on Friday to dismantle their equipment. The city of Mannheim announced that the container would also be removed by a special company. The salvage went smoothly and without incident on the second day. 17 people were slightly injured by the escape of toxic gases from the container on Tuesday last week.
The chemical company BASF, which wanted to sell the barrels of hydrosulfite to Turkey, is continuing to investigate the cause. A spokesman for the company said that external and internal experts were examining each of the almost 200 barrels. These were brought to the company’s own areas by the terminal operator Contargo. The spokesman explained that it was not yet possible to say in which direction the investigation of the cause could go.
From the results one wants to draw conclusions about the future handling of the bleach for the textile industry. The company sells several thousand tons of it every year. The damaged cargo in the container weighed 22 tons.
The container, which had been sprinkled with Rhine water for days and heated up by a chemical reaction, had cooled down so much after a week that it could be salvaged without major chemical reactions. The last barrels were delivered to BASF on Thursday evening.
Hydrosulfite tends to self-ignite if handled improperly. The result: Sulfur dioxide and sulfur are produced during combustion. Inhalation of sulfur dioxide can cause eye and respiratory irritation. It is suspected that such a reaction could have taken place in the container.
Mannheim’s Lord Mayor Peter Kurz (SPD) thanked the emergency services: “Thanks to their work, the people of Mannheim in the neighboring districts were protected, the situation was kept stable and worse things were prevented.”
