Swiss university disposes of hazardous substance
The disposal of a potentially hazardous chemical substance from a former research site at the Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich was successfully completed on Sunday.
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening:
Swiss university disposes of hazardous substance
+ Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox
The almost 270 residents evacuated as a precautionary measure were able to return to their homes as planned.
The gas cylinder filled with chlorine trifluoride was reloaded as planned into a specially designed recovery container and transported away by a specialised company, the Zurich cantonal police announced on Sunday afternoon. The coordinated operation in the area of the ETH started as planned on Sunday morning. All residents had left their homes in good time.
The precautionary safety measures for reloading and removal from a secure laboratory at ETH Zurich were lifted after around six hours. The ordered evacuation and the temporary traffic restrictions were lifted after the work was completed at 4.25pm. The affected residents were allowed to return to their flats and houses.
According to the police, there were no incidents during the coordinated operation. All work was carried out in a controlled manner and in accordance with the planned measures.
According to the ETH, chlorine trifluoride has been used in the past to analyse rock samples. The gas is considered one of the most dangerous chemicals of all, is toxic and can ignite easily.
Translated from German by AI/mga
We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.
Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.
If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch.
External Content
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.