Pakistan floods released stored toxic chemicals into environment

CANCUN - The unprecedented floods that tore through Pakistan earlier this year released some 3000 tonnes of dangerous chemicals into the environment, a report due to be published next year has said.

The report, whose findings were presented at the climate negotiations in Cancun, Mexico, found that climate change increases the risks posed in several ways, New Scientist reports.

Climate Change and persistent organic pollutants (POPs) Inter-Linkages, published by the UN Environment Programme, is the first study to look at how climate change will affect POPs, which are regulated under the UN Stockholm convention.

Both measurements and models show that as evaporation increases with warmer temperatures, more of the chemicals are released from land masses, rivers and lakes where they are stored, and once in the atmosphere, they can travel great distances.

Storms and extreme weather events like this year’s floods in Pakistan are another factor in the release of POPs into the environment, when disasters release stockpiles stored in drums.

Pakistan is a recent signatory of the Stockholm Convention, and in 2009 it had filed a preliminary audit of its POP stockpiles, stating that there were at least 6000 tonnes of the chemicals locked up in stores around the country.

According to Pakistan’s audit, about half of the stores were in low-lying areas near bodies of water, including the areas that were flooded this year.

Michael Stanley-Jones of UNEP said aerial surveys after the floods found that the facilities had been destroyed by the force of the water crashing through the flooded plains. (ANI)