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Dangerous goods and explosives - What are the OHS risks?

There are 9 Classes of Dangerous Goods. The most commonly encountered include:

Class 1 Explosives
Class 2 Gases
Class 3 Flammable Liquids, and
Class 6 Toxic substances.

Incidents involving dangerous goods pose a serious and immediate risk to people, property or the environment. As such they are both a workplace and public safety issue.

Incidents may take a variety of forms, ranging from uncontrolled emissions and loss of containment to physicochemical effects such as fire and explosion.

The health effects most associated with dangerous goods relate to physicochemical effects - heat or chemical burns, blast injuries and acute health effects such as poisoning and asphyxiation as a consequence of exposure to dangerous goods liberated in the incident to any toxic by-products produced as a consequence of the incident itself e.g. toxic smoke.