Spectacular industrial accidents, such as the ones in Bhopal, Mexico City and Basle, have in recent times made the risks associated with the modern chemicals industry unmistakably evident. An analysis of events showed that when on-site safety precautions fail effective emergency plans for the people living in the vicinity of an installation become particularly important. Emergency plans can be a matter of life and death. For quite some time now they have been part of a comprehensive system to protect areas in the vicinity of hazardous industrial installations from the harmful effects which can result from a major accident. The most important elements of this system were laid down in the ‘Regulation on major industrial accidents’ (Storfallverordnung; a regulation which implements on a national level the EEC Directive 82/501/EEC, the Seveso Directive) which will be briefly described here.