It appears that the plant management had a clear concept about what to do that wa ignored in two ways:
- no clear communication to outside authorities
- no warning sirens for the neighbors
It's understandable that the first priority would be to find missing workers, but surely the plant manager can delegate this to the site fire brigade (if existing) and make two phone calls?
AFAIK EU's Seveso directive (96/82/E) would mandate minimum distances between the plant and residential building, but I don't know how much (I think the actual distances are specified in local law if a all, the EU directive is more "the member states shall ...") and that's no use when the plant and buildings are older than the directive.
