Legacy Waste: Did mustard gas from World Wars dumped in Baltic cause Nord Stream explosions

Legacy Waste: Did mustard gas from World Wars dumped in Baltic cause Nord Stream explosions

Subject :Environment

Context-

• The Nord Stream pipelines carrying gas from Russia to Germany through the Baltic sprang a leak on September 26, 2022, after explosions rocked the area.
• A huge plume of methane, a strong greenhouse gas, subsequently spread across northern Europe before dissipating.
• The United Nations Environment Programme called the leak the biggest emission of methane yet.

The severity of Explosion–

• According to Sweden and Denmark, the ruptures of the underwater gas pipelines were caused by explosions equal to several hundred kilograms of TNT, the equivalent of several conventional aerial bombs used during the last World War.

Connection to World War-I and II–

• The explosions took place to the northeast of Bornholm where an estimated 30,000-35,000 tonnes of chemical weapons from World War I and II were dumped from August 1945 to July 1965.
• These chemicals were unused by Germany. Alongside, raw materials and additives used for making them were also dumped under the supervision of British and Soviet authorities in post-World War II Germany.
• Later, the German Democratic Republic or East Germany carried out the dumping.

What these chemicals include–

• These chemicals and raw materials include vesicants, irritants, lachrymogens, vomitants, sternutatories, lung agents, toxics, neurotoxics and blood agents.
• Deadly and infamous products developed by German chemists such as tabun, mustard gas, phosgene and Zyklon B were also among those dumped at the site.

Burns in the Baltic-

• During the pre-laying works for Nord Stream 1 in the Danish Exclusive Economic Zone,four KC 250 mustard gas bombs were discovered between seven metres and 17 metres from the projected route. They were inspected prior to laying in autumn-winter 2010.
• The Danish authorities allowed the bombs to remain where they were as they did not consider them to be a threat to the pipeline.
• They were inspected again in January 2011, after the pipeline was laid. No further damage was reportedly observed.
• But mustard gas has burned people in the area.

The chemicals have severely affected marine life around Bornholm–

• Between 1994 and 2012, HELCOM  (Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission) reports that around 4 tonnes of mustard gas lumps were brought to the surface by fishing gear in the Bornholm area.
• Some 102 children were burnt on a beach in Darlowo, Poland, opposite Bornholm, in July 1955, after recovering a leaking barrel containing mustard gas from the beach.

Some 196 tonnes of fish contaminated in Danish fishermen’s nets with mustard gas particles were withdrawn from the market and destroyed between 1968 and 1984.