The ACT Fire Brigade and ACT Workcover both raised concerns about shoddy equipment and poor work safety practices by a Mitchell hazardous waste treatment company before last year's explosive chemical fire, according to documents released under Freedom of Information.
The documents also reveal the highly toxic nerve gas phosgene were detected in the fire's smoke plume, but emergency response crews had ''no capacity to test for larger exposure to chemicals''.

Last September, a massive chemical fire engulfed the Energy Services Invironmental waste treatment plant in Dacre Street, which was licensed by the ACT Environment Protection Agency to treat electrical transformer oil contaminated with toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (known as PCBs). It hurled fireballs up to 200m above the burning building, and sent a dense plume of acrid black smoke billowing across Canberra's skyline.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- DuPont Co. rejected affordable plant and equipment upgrades, ignored near-miss incidents and violated the chemical giant's own widely touted safety guidelines in failing to prevent three January 2010 accidents that left one Belle plant worker dead, federal investigators said in a report issued Thursday.
U.S. Chemical Safety Board officials found common threads -- including poor maintenance practices, ineffective warning alarms, and insufficient accident investigations -- among the three incidents that occurred over a 33-hour period Jan. 22-23, 2010.

Chief among the findings was that nearly 25 years ago DuPont rejected proposals to enclose the Belle plant's phosgene unit, a move that would have protected workers and local residents from the poisonous material used as a chemical weapon in World War I.

A chemical leak sickened 62 people Thursday at a pharmaceutical plant in east China's Anhui Province, the local government said Friday.

The victims, all of whom were workers of the Wanbei Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd in Suzhou City, fell ill after inhaling fumes from the highly toxic solid phosgene, also known as triphosgene or BTC, that leaked from a laboratory at around 4:30 p.m. Thursday, said Zhu Hai, an official in charge of the city government's emergency response office.

Zhu said 37 workers were still being treated in hospital as of Friday afternoon, of whom eight were in critical condition.

ALBANY -- Police say a man brought into their headquarters Wednesday morning a plastic container containing what was originally thought to be a possibly hazardous substance.

The man said his son found the container of liquid-filled ampoules inside a safe he'd opened this morning, and was afraid it may be hazardous, according to public safety spokesperson Det. James Miller. The Albany Fire Department haz-mat team responded and removed the ampoules, and State Police took them afterward.

Investigators believe at this time the liquid may be phosgene, a chemical gas used in World War I, as well as to safeguard safes.