ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the incident in 1981 at a small chemical works that processed waste chemical materials in Stalybridge near Manchester does not rank in severity with the major disasters. On 21 July 1992 a fire broke out at a raw materials warehouse on the Allied Colloids site at Low Moor. The heated kegs burst, spilling their powdery contents onto the floor. The worker then noticed smoke or vapour coming from a sack of sodium per sulphate (SPS) beneath the kegs and heard a hissing sound. It was a mistake to have stored AZDN in the same room as an oxidising substance. There had been a mix-up in the documentation. A road tanker arrived at Albright and Wilson's Avonmouth chemical works at about 10.30 that morning to deliver a load of epichlorohydrin that had been ordered and was expected. Not long after offloading into a dedicated epichlorohydrin storage tank had begun, several explosions followed and then a fire broke out.
