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On Saturday 10 July 1976, an explosion
occurred in a TCP (2,4,5-trichlorophenol) reactor of the ICMESA chemical
plant on the outskirts of Meda, a small town about 20 kilometres north of
Milan, Italy. A toxic cloud containing TCDD
(2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin), then widely believed to be
one of the most toxic man-made chemicals, was accidentally released into
the atmosphere. The dioxin cloud contaminated a densely populated area
about six kilometres long and one kilometre wide, lying downwind from the
site. This event became internationally known as the Seveso
disaster, after the name of a neighbouring municipality that was most
severely affected.
The Seveso disaster had a particularly
traumatic effect on exposed local populations because its seriousness was
recognized only gradually.
The best-known consequence of the Seveso
disaster was the impulse that it gave to the creation of the European
Community's Seveso Directive, a new system of industrial regulation
B. De Marchi, S. Funtowicz, and J. Ravetz, Seveso, A Paradoxical
Classic Disaster (1994?) (link)
An excellent chronology of events and description of the causes of this
event.
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