Seveso

Seveso was a chemical accident in 1976. It happened in the chemical area from Icmesa, near of Milan in the town Seveso. Icmesa was owned by Givaudan a subsidiary company of Roche. The disaster was named by the city because Seveso, with a population of 17,000 in 1976, was the community most affected. 

On the 10th of July 1976, a reactor explodes because of a dioxide called Tetrachlordibenzodioxin (TCDD). This dioxide is a product caused by trichlorophenol. This chemical fabric was intended as an intermediate for hexachlorophene. Hexachlorophene is a disinfectant. 

The reactor massive overheated and then exploded, causing the aerial release of 6 tonnes of chemicals, the massive cloud full of poison settled over Seveso, Meda, Desio and Cesano Maderno. The explosion was approximately at 1 o`clock. One hour later 1.800 hectares were poisoned for years. 

In the following days, this accident became a terrible type two focusing event. It had to look like a horror movie scene. 

The poisoned areas were split into Zones. 3,300 animals, mostly poultry and rabbits, were found dead. In total fear, within two years over 80,000 animals had been slaughtered, to prevent TCDD entering the food chain. 15 children were quickly hospitalized with skin inflammation. By the end of August 1976, Zone A had been completely evacuated and fenced, 1,600 people of all ages had been examined and 447 were found to suffer from skin lesions or chloracne. Chloracne is caused through the poison and it looks like cysts and pustules. A health department advised pregnant women to abort their babies. 

First of all, I have to say Icmesa set up an emergency plan and they built advising centers to help people in the areas which is good, but the communication with the whole public and the crisis management was terrible and not truly. Maybe a problem was, that to this time, PR management especially crisis communication was non-existent in companies. Cases like Seveso are precedents for the development of crisis management. 

Although the factory management knew that TCDD had been released on the first day after the accident, they did not officially announce it until eight days later. The mother company Roche was informed internally of the accident and the substance released on July 12, but it was also not made public. Of course, it was a disaster to denial this situation. 

Roche Boss Adolf Jahn commented the death of the first humans with the statement: “The woman who sadly died suffered from asthma. The boy who was admitted to the hospital with liver damage had jaundice. Both cases have nothing to do with the Icmesa.“ I am still not sure who actually believed this. 

Approximately ten years were needed to repair the damage and to end the decontamination measures. The dismantling and demolition work began in the factory itself. At the beginning of 1982, the Italian started the disposal of the reactor contents. On September 24th of 1983, there was a lawsuit against a few workers and the production chief of Roche Jörg Sambeth. 

From 1981 to 1983, Icmesa paid the communities Desio (with 748,900 euros), Cesano Maderno (1.47 million euros), Meda (671,400 euros) and Seveso (7.75 million euros). In 1993, 850 citizens from the poisoned areas sued for compensation for the moral and biological damage they had suffered.

In 1980 Paolo Paoletti the production chief of Icmesa was shot in the city Monza.The only person who ever apologized for the terrible incident was Jörg Sambeth from Roche in 2005. Until today Seveso is an object lesson of how important crisis management is especially for chemical companies. Today because of Seveso they are existing guidelines the „Seveso Guidelines“ to prevent terrible incidents like that.