An explosion occurred at Chempark, an

industrial park An industrial park (also known as industrial estate, trading estate) is an area zoned and planned for the purpose of industrial development. An industrial park can be thought of as a more "heavyweight" version of a business park or office park ...

for chemical factories in

Leverkusen Leverkusen () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, on the eastern bank of the Rhine. To the south, Leverkusen borders the city of Cologne, and to the north the state capital, Düsseldorf. With about 161,000 inhabitants, Leverkusen is o ...

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more than 18 million inha ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, on 27 July 2021, at 9:40 a.m. local time, sending a pall of smoke over the city. The city of Leverkusen stated that the explosion, which caused a fire, occurred in storage tanks for solvents. In a first statement, the

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

fire department said that the

air pollution Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different typ ...

measurements did not show any kind of abnormality, the smoke had gone down and that they would continue to measure the air for

toxin A toxin is a naturally occurring organic poison produced by metabolic activities of living cells or organisms. Toxins occur especially as a protein or conjugated protein. The term toxin was first used by organic chemist Ludwig Brieger (1849 ...

s. Later, the environment department of North Rhine-Westphalia ( LANUV) announced they were expecting toxic doses of dioxin, PCB and furan or their derivatives in the fallout from the smoke cloud and told residents in large surrounding areas not to eat or touch fruit from their gardens, even not to clean surfaces and objects from the fallout until further notice. The explosion killed seven people, thirty-one more people were injured. All the casualties were workers at the site.

References

2021 fires in Europe 2021 industrial disasters 2021 disasters in Europe 2020s disasters in Germany 2020s in North Rhine-Westphalia Disasters in North Rhine-Westphalia Explosions in 2021 Explosions in Germany Fires in Germany July 2021 events in Germany 2021 explosion {{Germany-hist-stub