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Description of methods and efforts to avoid a reoccurance of similar disasters.

  • To avoid this kind of disasters emergency services such as doctors, fire fighters, ambulances, healthy food, mental support, etc. can provide help to the victims.
  • Also, the homeless can be accommodated in schools, hospitals or in families living in neighboring towns.
  • Government should provide money to the injured people from such disasters.
  • Supervision and safety should be strictly checked and maintained at such facilities.

A description of the consequences of the disaster. Immediate and long term to humans and natural surroudnings

  • The actual human fatality record was nearly 561, 1,952 injured and 7,500 people left homeless.
  • Among them were the passengers from three train workers, several school children. Also sailors were injured from Rhine River.
  • Most of the people suffered from eye injury.
  • Around 80% of the buildings in Oppau were destroyed.
  • Significant destruction was also reported in Ludwigshafen and Mannheim.
  • It was found in the New York Times on 29 January 1922, the material damage was about $1,700,000.

BSAF Plant Oppau,Germany, 1921

A description of what went wrong on the day of the disaster.

Inclusion of the specific chemcial reaction, or reactions, that produced the disaster. Word and chemical equation.

  • A very powerful explosion took place in the silo storing 4,500 tonnes of a mixture of ammonium sulphate and ammonium nitrate fertilizer creating a 90m X 125m crater and 20m deep!
  • According to the records, there were two successive explosions, the first one being weak and the second one devastating.
  • The explosion killed about 500 to 600 people and injured more than 2000 people.
  • Material damage took place several kilometers away from the accident site.
  • The affected region was then covered in thick smoke that along with the disturbance of telegraph and telecom services made rescue systems even more challenging.
  • Soon after the explosion, there were several fires on the facility and some less intense explosions occurred on the site causing the air turn heavy with ammonia vapors.
  • The explosion of the 50-50 mixture in highly confined conditions and a relatively low density was limited to the region around where the explosives were placed. The noteworthy impacts of some physical properties of the fertilizer (density, humidity, etc.) on its ability to explode.
  • Haber Bosch Process was carried out to produce ammonia, reacting hydrogen with nitrogen in the presence of iron catalyst under high temperature and pressure.

3H2 (g) + N2 (aq) ------> 2NH3(aq)

  • It is a strong base so it reacts readily with acids to make ammonium salts. During the war, Germany found it hard to get hold of Sulphur and so the Ostwald process was employed that oxidized ammonia to nitric acid.

2NH3(aq) + 4O2(aq) ------> 2HNO3(aq) + 4H2O(l)

Description of the process normally carried out at the facility:

  • Included a mixture of potassium chloride and ammonium nitrate in equal proportions.
  • The raw material ammonia was produced using the new Haber-Bosch process that used atmospheric nitrogen.
  • During that time, ammonia salts were produced for military use such as elements for explosives and civil purposes.
  • The potassium chloride/ammonium nitrate mixture was over time replaced by a 50/50 mixture of ammonium sulphate and ammonium nitrate called "mischsaltz".
  • 4,500 tons of ammonium sulphonitrate were stored in a shop, 4m below the ground. There were 8,000 people working on the site

By: Tarnima Farheen and Batool Jafri

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