Reporter recalls covering Schweizerhalle disaster live

Forty years after the Schweizerhalle chemical disaster, former Radio Basilisk reporter Cathy Flaviano has returned to the industrial district near Basel where she covered the fire live as a 19-year-old. In a reconstruction with SRF’s history podcast, she recalled how reports of a supposed smouldering fire became one of Switzerland’s biggest environmental disasters, SRF reports.

Radio Basilisk was celebrating its third anniversary on the night of October 31, 1986. Flaviano had finished work but was at the station to raise a glass with the night shift when calls came in shortly after midnight reporting a fire in Schweizerhalle. Authorities described it as a smouldering fire, but she was sceptical and drove to the scene.

From a distance, she saw what she described as a huge blaze. Turned away at the factory gate, she found a telephone booth and reported live to the studio. Her descriptions of towering flames and a black cloud of smoke were among the first eyewitness accounts. For many people in the region, Radio Basilisk became a key source of information that night. Editor-in-chief Urs Hobi also came into the studio to help with reporting.

As firefighters battled the blaze, uncertainty grew. Residents were told to keep windows and doors shut, while authorities did not know exactly which substances were in the smoke or where it was heading. At a makeshift press centre, Flaviano saw a firefighter remove his helmet, remark that the room smelled, and open the windows. The moment made her think about her own health, she recalled.

Authorities did not issue an all-clear until shortly after 7am, saying the smoke was unpleasant but posed no danger to the public. After working through the night, Flaviano stopped at a Basel confectionery for coffee and a croissant. When she returned to her car, she found a parking ticket.

The fire broke out at a Sandoz warehouse on November 1, 1986. The cause has never been conclusively established. More than 1,000 tonnes of insecticides and crop-protection products were stored inside. Toxic red firefighting water flowed into the Rhine, causing severe pollution; more than 150,000 eels died, and the river’s upper reaches were left nearly biologically dead.