• Brief Description
  
  
• Historical Data
  
  
• International Guidance
  
  
• Links and Sources

Brief Description

A truck carrying gasoline has crashed into six buses full of passengers, killing as many as 90 people and wounding 114 others in southeastern Iran.

The truck tanker was carrying more than 17,000 liters of gasoline when it lost control and hit one of the buses and burst into flames while the leaking gasoline, which turned the whole area into an inferno, incinerating the buses and several other vehicles which had stopped at a police post in Nosratabad outside the city of Zahedan on the main road from Bam.

Reports suggest that at least one other lorry - possibly a second tanker or a vehicle carrying tar - was caught up in the blaze, which firementook more than two hours to extinguish.

Most of those killed in Thursday night's accident at a police checkpoint in Nosratabad, about 1,100 kilometers (690 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran, were women and children waiting inside the buses, according to media reports.

Haidar Ali Nourai, governor of the southeastern city of Zahedan, said the accident happened when the truck was unable to stop and smashed into a bus waiting at a police checkpoint in Nosratabad. The fireball then enveloped five other buses.

The victims were burnt to death due to a lack of firefighting equipment at the police station in Nosratabad, local officials told Iranian television.

In February, about 300 people were killed when a train carrying fuel and chemicals caught fire and exploded in the north-east of the country.


Historical Data on Transportation of Dangerous Goods

Around 22,000 people are killed every year in traffic accidents across Iran. On a monthly average, that is higher than the death rate in the eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s.

Transport Accidents and their Consequences

International Guidance

• UNEP TransAPELL handbook
  
  
• International and National Guidelines, Acts and Regulations

The UNEP TransAPELL handbook

TransAPELL takes APELL guidance beyond the risks associated with fixed facilities to include those arising from the shipping, distribution and transport of dangerous goods. Planning for risks arising from the transport of dangerous goods is just as necessary as for fixed facilities but even more complex, for the following reasons:

• Transport routes - the "risk objects" in this context - normally have a considerable geographical extension. As an emergency can occur anywhere along the route, emergency planning must be very flexible..
  
  
• For historical or practical reasons, many routes pass through densely populated areas, along river valleys or along the shores of inland lakes, etc. There may, therefore, be many threatened objects (people, property, the natural environment) in the vicinity of possible accident locations.
  
  
• Hazard identification is more complex. Many hazardous materials are transported several times during their product lives. This means that, in most cases, planning has to cover a greater variety of hazardous materials than is the case for a fixed facility. When a transport emergency arises, there may well be delay in ascertaining what substances are involved.
  
  
• The number of stakeholders is generally greater than for fixed installations. Transport industries, particularly the road haulage industry, typically involve a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Many of these or other stakeholders may not have offices or other rep-resentation in communities concerned.
  
  
• An accident involving dangerous goods may happen in transit through a community that does not have any fixed chemical installations. Its emergency services are, therefore, unlikely to be equipped or trained to tackle emergencies involving unfamiliar and possibly unidentified chemicals.
  
  
• The population at large is likely to be more ignorant of the hazards and of how to act in an emergency. Nearby residents, people in private cars or passengers in halted trains could all be affected. It will be more difficult to produce and disseminate adequate public information.

The guidance in this Report is applicable to all land transport of dangerous goods by road, rail and pipeline, as well as to the handling of such goods at interfaces with other modes of transport, e.g. ports and airports. The guidance is intended to supplement the provisions of national and international law and regulations, not to replace or interfere with them.

International Guidelines, Acts and Regulations

UN Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods.
Model Regulations

The United Nations Model Regulations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods provide a basis for development of harmonized regulations for all modes of transport, in order to facilitate trade and the safe, efficient transport of hazardous materials. The UN Model Regulations is in its 13th edition and is the basis for most international, regional, national and modal transportation regulations. The UN Model Regulations enhance safety, improve enforcement capability, ease training requirements and enhance global trade and economic development. Safety is enhanced primarily because harmonized requirements simplify the complexity of the regulations, simplify training efforts, and decrease the likelihood of non-compliance. The Model Regulations provide economic benefits by eliminating the costs of complying with a multitude of differing national, regional and modal regulations. The UN Model Regulations facilitate compatibility between modal requirements so that a consignment may be transported by more than one mode without intermediate reclassification, marking, labeling or repackaging.

The Office of Hazardous Materials Safety

The Office of Hazardous Materials Safety, which is within the United States Department of Transportation's Research and Special Programs Administration, is responsible for coordinating a national safety program for the transportation of hazardous materials by air, rail, highway and water, where comprehensive guidance on the subject can be found.

Links and Sources

Relief web, part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
AFP
BBC News
CNN News
UNEP Chemicals Programme
OECD Chemical Safety Department


Sources

Story and pictures from CNN and BBC News

If you want to send us your comments, please e-mail us at: apell@unep.fr