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November 20, 2011

Blast in melamine plant kills 14

A BBC news report indicates that 14 people were killed in a blast in a melamine plant in China when work was going on an heat exchanger. Read the news report in this link. The cause of the explosion is not known.
The European agency for safety and health and work reports an incident in 2003, in Netherlands, where three maintenance workers were killed when a gas oven in a melamine plant exploded and the three workers who were standing on the cover of the oven fell into it.The gas oven was fired by natural gas and off gases from neighbouring plants. The off gases were contaminated and were filtered before use. The filters had to be cleaned regularly. A short cut taken during maintenance of these filters created a combustible mixture of gas and air in the oven which was ignited by a stray spark. Although this was the immediate cause of the explosion, investigations concluded that the underlying cause was a company culture which had allowed the untested short cut procedure to be used.
The lesson is to follow safe procedures and not to take short cuts even under time pressure. The accident also highlights the importance of the safety culture. Read the report in this link.

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