Baggage handlers taken to hospital!!!???
Sounds like the usual ridiculous British overreaction to a "virulent poison" - oh dear... What were they doing, licking the baggage hold clean???
Yes, mercury has some pretty unpleasant effects if ingested but then so do lots of other things. It is hardly a "virulent poison" though, and it certainly is not magnetic in any shape or form.
As Lu said, generations of schoolkids have reduced mercuric oxide over bunsen burners and suffered no ill effects - vapour visible in UV notwithstanding, I clearly recall regularly chasing globules of mercury around the Chem lab desks - the place must have been stiff with the stuff...But we did know to wash hands afterwards. Don't they do washing hands in belfast?
And I'm struck with the thought that it is a very good thing that there was no dry bromine spilled on board at the same time...just imagine! Perhaps they were just lucky and the bromine on board was wet...
I bet the company concerned has some engineering headaches now though, the corrosion issue is a very serious one, and as generations of us know mercury has an amazing way of scuttering off into distant corners and splitting into lots of tiny droplets that are the very devil to clean up.