Based on unofficial records of more than 1000 chemical incidents that occurred between 1988 and 2006, a booming period for the chemical industry in Korea, we document the following regarding these incidents the frequency of trends, incident sites, types of damage. severity, and chemicals involved The Research Institute of Disaster and Emergency Management of Inje University cooperated with the Korea Responsible Care Council of the chemical industry to provide the 24-h chemical emergency information service, a voluntary program initiated in the private sector. There were 267 emergency calls and 2007, and, unexpectedly, many calls were related to requests about information between 2004 regarding unknown chemical ingredients in consumer chemicals. Thus, for consumer chemical products,, a more informative labeling system - complete with compositional information - may protect people from potential chemical hazards. Furthermore, this service provided information about how to design the future national emergency center, a current priority for the government. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved