History |
The first known use of Chlorine gas on the battlefield was in the Second Battle of Ypres in April 22, 1915 by the Germans against Allied soldiers, specifically at two French colonial divisions with the intention of breaking the stalemate of trench warfare on the Western Front, which it was ultimately unable to accomplish despite the many casualties and severe suffering (demonstrated in figure 5) it caused (6). The attack of more than 150 tons of chlorine gas into Allied trenches was devastating to the Allied line, causing havoc as it was blown across the “no-man’s land” and into the dirt troughs that inhabited soldiers. Throughout the course of the first world war, it is estimated that chemical weapons, one of the most significant of which being chlorine, were responsible for the deaths of some 30,000 troops(6).
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(figure 5) "Devilry, Thy Name is Germany!": Soldiers, Trapped by a Gas Cloud, Lie Unconscious in the Trenches. This newspaper article cover shows the agony endured by trench soldiers in WWI due to chlorine gas attacks (12).
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Current Event: Syrian Civil war |
In his attempt to discourage and suppress resistance from Syrian rebels against his regime, Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad has approved the employment of chlorine gas on civilians as a means of ending the Syrian civil war. The first alleged chlorine attack in Syria was in the northern town of Kafr Zeta in April 2014, in which inhabitants reported “waking up before dawn to the buzz of helicopters and an overpowering smell of bleach. A video recorded at a local clinic shows doctors struggling to treat panicked victims struggling for breath.” Since then, 18 chlorine attacks have allegedly occurred in northern Syria. An ex-Syrian soldier in the chemical division, Zaher al Saket, describes defecting after being ordered to use chemical weapons against civilians: “I realized that this regime is only going to use more and more chemical weapons against civilians.” Although Syria has agreed to dismantle its chemical weapons stockpile in accordance with a United Nations resolution, its chlorine supply is not regulated by the U.N. because it has many industrial applications, including the purification of water(1).
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(figure 6) this animation shows the reaction between chlorine gas and water.
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symptoms |
The effects of inhaling chlorine include the following:
At low levels of exposure: respiratory irritation (cough and sore throat) At intermediate - high levels of exposure: tightness of the chest, dyspnea, bronchospasm, and wheezing. At severe - fatal levels of exposure: noncardiogenic pulmonary edema At 2.5 mg/L, inhalation of chlorine gas is instantly lethal, while chlorine gas concentrations of around .15/L are lethal after more prolonged periods of exposure. (7) |