STAFF at a London mortuary faced potentially lethal exposure to cyanide when they opened coffins containing victims of the Air India Boeing crash, reported the Telegraph.
Workers could have died after remains from the disaster were treated with dangerously toxic amounts of a preservation chemical before being brought back to Britain, a coroner has cautioned.
The bodies had been covered in formalin, a substance normally used for preservation, but "dangerously high levels" were applied.
Professor Fiona Wilcox, senior coroner for Inner West London, cautioned that British morgues are not prepared to handle remains treated with such extreme quantities of formalin.
"There is an underappreciation across mortuaries of the dangers posed by formalin to the health of all mortuary users," she was quoted as saying.
Formalin includes formaldehyde – a substance that evaporates into the air and can irritate breathing passages. It is carcinogenic and linked to acute myeloid leukaemia,
Professor Wilcox said, adding: "It has toxic effects including metabolic acidosis, bronchospasm, pulmonary oedema and death.
"With heat and light exposure it breaks down releasing carbon monoxide which is highly toxic. If it mixes with a source of ammonia (commonly seen with decomposition), cyanide which is also highly toxic can be released."
When coffins from the disaster were opened at Westminster Public Mortuary, the excessive formalin caused cyanide and carbon monoxide to escape into the air. The sealed coffins contained a formalin concentration of approximately 40 per cent.
A police chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear team was brought in to assist with environmental checks and breathing equipment.
The Air India Boeing 787 crashed 32 seconds after departing from Ahmedabad Airport in India while flying to London Gatwick on June 12. Just one passenger survived while 241 passengers and 19 people on the ground died. Fifty-three of the passengers were British.
The London coroner said many mortuary users "appeared unaware and were surprised by the nature of the danger from the formalin, which is commonly used to preserve human remains and especially when bodies of deceased persons are repatriated from abroad.
"It is apparently not usual for environmental monitoring to be routinely available in either public or hospital mortuaries," she noted.
In a Prevention of Future Deaths report, she warned that "mortuaries frequently receive bodies preserved in formalin" but formalin is not routinely monitored.
She added: "[I am concerned] that appropriate equipment may not be available nor used when mortuaries handle bodies significantly contaminated with formalin, thus exposing users of mortuaries to health risks including risk of death."
According to the newspaper, she has sent the report to government ministers, mortuary managers and medical professionals – who have 56 days to respond.
