History of Chemical Disasters

When we hear about chemical disasters weenemies. In 1320 BC the Hittites infested their
immediately think of Chernobyl. And they wouldopponents the Arzawans with deadly tularemia.
be right to do so. Chernobyl nuclear disaster is theThey sent donkeys infected with the disease and
most serious man-made disaster in living historytransmitting the plague via ticks and flies. A witch
that still haunts many today. The consequencesnamed Chrysame who was an expert in ancient
following the Ukrainian catastrophe translated intopharmacology used drugs to cause temporary
serious bans on commissioning nuclear powerinsanity in the enemy, during the Greek
plants and in the case of the United States evencolonization of Ionia in about 1000 BC. According
into pushing a thriving nuclear power industry intoto Polyaenus, she fed a bull with a medicinal herb
Chapter 11. Chernobyl soon became the strongestthat would excite madness and then presented it
argument of the opponents of nuclear power inas a present to her enemies.
the debate on renewable. Few know, howeverBut the masters of biological warfare were the
that what happened there could have easily beenChinese who in the 10th century BC came with
avoided if the then soviet central government inthe so called soul-hunting fog which contained
Moscow would have at least made the accidentarsenic or the five-league fog slow-burning
public and would have taken a few necessarygunpowder to which a variety of ingredients,
precautionary steps.including the excrement of wolves, was added to
Only at 9 pm, after the neighboring Swedishproduce an irritating smoke.
warned them with a petition filed at theIt goes without saying that one needs to prepare
International Atomic Energy Authority, did thefor a disaster. Disaster relief shelters would be
officials in Moscow five-sentence statementone way of doing it. Meanwhile taking a few
informing on the world`s worst disaster.lessons in getting yourself ready for a disaster
Fewer still are aware that chemical disasterwould not come amiss: from making a first aid kit
started ages before with our ancestors into taking vital documents and knowing how to
Antiquity using biological weapons to eliminate theirevacuate.