I don’t see anything else reporting fatalities, though. Ok, now I’m seeing more about deaths. ☹️
Man… my last year of college I got an internship in the IT department at the local pulp and paper mill in town. We had a big tank of chlorine on site for bleaching the pulp. As a result we were not allowed to be anywhere on the grounds without an escape respirator on our belt. We also had to have steel toe shoes, a hardhat, eye and ear protection, but those were only required to be on if you were in certain parts of the plant. We didn’t have to wear them in the offices. But that respirator always had to be handy. Basically just a filter with a mouthpiece that you suck air through. But some of the old-timers warned me that if one of those tanks ever really blew, those respirators wouldn’t do much good.
As far as I know, though, the mill I worked at never had an emergency like this on site. They have since shut down operation.
But some of the old-timers warned me that if one of those tanks ever really blew, those respirators wouldn’t do much good.
If there’s not enough oxygen in the air (e.g. because it is mostly chlorine gas), the filter can’t help. It can prevent lung damage (which is good), but if you don’t get somewhere with sufficient oxygen, you’ll be unconscious quickly (and, potentially, dead within minutes).
Yeah, exactly. Chlorine is significantly more dense than air, and the plant was on low-lying land on the waterfront. So basically, we’d all be blanketed with chlorine gas and suffocate unless we could get to higher ground fast enough.
Fuck, what a horrifying way to die…
Fuck I’m on the emergency response team at work and luckily in 10 years its been all water leaks. Its semiconductor manufacturing so we have all kinds of nasty shit around. I do not want to imagine something this happening at work.
