A two-part documentary: 1
Disasters happen to people. 1977 is the year of the world's worst air disaster. It came close to being the year of the worst North Sea oil-field disaster. The technological society races on - has science moved faster than safety?
Fire, explosion, toxic fumes. How prepared are we to cope with a major disaster? Can we imagine the unimaginable? No one imagined devastation on the scale produced by Britain's biggest peacetime explosion - at Flixborough in 1974. Twenty-eight dead. One hundred and fourteen injured. Twenty-two acres of chemical complex destroyed. Devastation over an area of 40 square miles. Three thousand people evacuated from their homes due to toxic fumes.
Red Alert looks at the lessons of Flixborough learned the hard way, and examines the emergency training exercises and planning, which all too often reveal the breakdown in communication that in a real-life situation can lead to disaster. Gordon Atherley , Professor of Safety and Hygiene at Aston University, analyses the cost of safety.
Written and narrated by JEREMY HORNSBY
Film cameraman ELMER cosset Film editor IAN MCKENDRICK Producer TONY BROUGHTON (Part 2 next Tuesday) Preview: page 15