Estimating health risk from dust dispersion during a potential collapse of a severely contaminated building

摘要

The paper presents a risk analysis that was conducted in order to estimate the adverse health effects anticipated from the potential collapse of a historically contaminated building. Towards this direction several dust dispersion scenarios were simulated, and the resulting concentrations of the contaminants of concern were compared to appropriate emergency exposure limits. The results indicate that irreversible or other serious health effects could occur, especially among the most vulnerable groups of the population. However, these worrying findings were helpful towards accelerating the approval process of the proposed remedial measures, which are expected to start shortly.