The Hamburg disaster

In Hamburg, West Germany, on the Sunday afternoon of 28 May, 1928, the cover of a tank filled with about 10 m of liquid phosgene was ejected with a loud bang. Within a short time, approximately 8 m (11 t) of phosgene escaped. A light North-Easterly wind of only 2-3 m s prevailed, and 300 people were poisoned at distances of up to 10 km from the source 17 were severely injured, 10 of whom eventually died [920]. Most of the animals in the area died, vegetation yellowed a distance of approximately 14 km marked the limit of perceptibility [939]. 

Despite having been previously tested at 22 atm (2.2 MPa), the container (one of three), reputedly pressurized to only 1.5-1.8 atm (0.15-0.18 MPa), ruptured at the welded seam on the main head dome after less than eleven months of storage. No excessive pressure was said to be generated in the container, since the shed of corrugated metal in which the 

A total of 80 tons of liquified phosgene gas (originating from military demobilization stocks) was thus stored within a populated city, without the deployment of any particular safety precautions. Had the gas release occurred on any day other than Sunday, the fatalities would 

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