Case studies of chemical incidents and emergency information service in Korea

Based on unofficial records of more than 1000 chemical incidents that occurred between 1988 and 2006, a booming period for the chemical industry in Korea, we document the following regarding these incidents: the frequency of trends, incident sites, types of damage, severity, and chemicals involved.The Research Institute of Disaster and Emergency Management of Inje University cooperated with the Korea Responsible Care Council of the chemical industry to provide the 24-h chemical emergency information service, a voluntary program initiated in the private sector. There were 267 emergency calls between 2004 and 2007, and, unexpectedly, many calls were related to requests about information regarding unknown chemical ingredients in consumer chemicals. Thus, for consumer chemical products, a more informative labeling system – complete with compositional information – may protect people from potential chemical hazards. Furthermore, this service provided information about how to design the future national emergency center, a current priority for the government.