The Sandoz chemical spill was a major environmental disaster caused by a fire and its subsequent extinguishing at Sandoz agrochemical storehouse in Schweizerhalle, Basel-Landschaft, Switzerland, on 1 November 1986, which released toxic agrochemicals into the air and resulted in tons of pollutants entering the Rhine river, turning it red. The chemicals caused a massive mortality of wildlife downstream, killing among other things a large proportion of the European eel population in the Rhine, although the situation subsequently recovered within a couple of years. The stored chemicals included, beside urea and fluorescent dye, organophosphate insecticides, mercury compounds and organochlorines.