Hazard identification of dangerous goods

For long, a lot of accidents related to goods transportation proved the need of hazards identification. International regulations are in existence for air, ground (road, rail), sea and waterways transportation. For about 25 years, a committee of experts has been dealing at United Nations level on Transportation of Dangerous Goods (TDG) and recently (beginning 2001) extended its work to Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling for Chemicals. In this lecture, will be presented first some typical accidents occurred with different types of goods : explosives, flammable substances (sinking of Ievoli Sun transporting chemicals and Erika transporting oil), toxic and corrosive, unclassified goods (Channel Tunnel in 1995, Mont-Blanc and Tauern tunnels in 1999). Then, a brief description of international regulations and of dangerous goods will be presented. Comments will be given on classification methods and procedures