24 June 2005: Evacuation not always the best option in chemical incidents

Evacuating people from their homes might not be the best course of action in the wake of a chemical incident, experts announced today.

UK researchers have for the first time compared symptoms of people evacuated from their homes following a chemical incident to symptoms of those instructed to stay at home. 

The incident investigated was a fire in a Devon plastics factory that resulted in hazardous chemicals being released into the environment. Initial actions by emergency services led to some residents being evacuated, but this decision was later reversed and residents were instructed to stay in their homes. 

The research team, headed by Sanjay Kinra at the University of Bristol, discovered that 300 people who were evacuated from their homes in the first six hours after the incident were twice as likely to suffer incident-related symptoms as were almost 800 people who stayed at home (20 per cent compared with 10 per cent). 

The distance of the residents’ homes from the factory had little effect on the chances of individuals showing symptoms.

Peter Baxter from the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Public Health suggests that the results concur with the current thinking preferring shelter over evacuation. However, he suggests that different weather conditions, the type of fire and the techniques employed by the emergency services to control the fire might necessitate the need to evacuate a community. Fiona Salvage