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March 30, 2017

March 28, 2017

March 24, 2017

Ammonia gas leak triggers explosion killing people

Thanks to Mr Satya Subrahmanyam for sending news about an ammonia receiver explosion in Kanpur cold storage facility that brought down the building, killing 6 people. Read about the incident in this link.


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March 21, 2017

Explosion in tank in paper mill

A tank at a packaging plant exploded in USA, killing three contractors and injuring at least seven, according to State Police. The explosion happened at an old paper mill.
Three men, all contractors, are confirmed dead. An unaccounted for person reported earlier has been located and is safe. State police have confirmed that there are six minor injuries and one moderate injury after the explosion. Contractors were working on the tank that exploded, and at least some of the people who died were contractors, a state police spokesman said. However, he said he wasn't able to say how many of the men killed were contractors and how many were plant employees.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) announced that a three-person investigation team from the board is deploying to the scene. Chairperson Sutherland said, “The CSB continues to be concerned about the frequency of dangerous hot work incidents and has added safe hot work practices to the agency’s Drivers of Critical Chemical Safety Change Program, a list of key chemical safety advocacy initiatives.”


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March 18, 2017

Trumps 2018 budget eliminates CSB

President Trump's 2018 proposed budget eliminates the Chemical Safety Board which has done yeomen service by publishing incident investigation reports and videos available on the internet. Let us wait and see whether the proposal will go through. Read the statement by CSB chairperson Vanessa Sutherland in this link.
 
Contribute to the surviving victims of Bhopal by buying my book "Practical Process Safety Management"

March 16, 2017

Learn from this incident

On Wednesday 12 October five people were injured after being exposed to H2S gas (hydrogen sulphide) at an oil and gas terminal.
Five people; two operators, one apprentice and two students on work placements, were exposed to H2S gas at the terminal in connection with work on an H2S reactor. A 14-metre high concrete vessel, the H2S reactor works as a produced water and ballast water cleaning facility with a short vent pipe on the top. One of the five individuals was critically injured, one seriously injured and three individuals were slightly injured. All made a full recovery and are now back in normal routines at work and/or at school.
The internal investigation report defines the incident as having the highest degree of seriousness, and concludes that in other slightly different circumstances the incident could have resulted in fatalities.
The report emphasises several root causes of the incident. Inadequate risk understanding, inadequate skills and emergency response management, in addition to failing barriers in connection with the inspection of the H2S reactor are key elements here. The report forms the basis for measures including: specific operational measures such as more use of portable gas detectors and improved operational procedures related to the H2S reactor, as well as general actions to help increase risk understanding among all employees and improve the quality of the safety work.
Courtesy:PSA

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March 13, 2017

Electrical installations fires

Electrical installations and equipment are often involved when incidents occur which involve fires and near-fires.These incidents are often caused by technical faults.

Technical causes also constitute a large portion of the underlying causes. Recurring factors include deficient earth fault protection, deficient overcurrent protection and degraded insulation as a result of high temperature.
As regards the preparedness handling of incidents, it emerges that it is challenging to shut down power to the installations before starting extinguishing efforts. Furthermore, in several of the incidents, there are ambiguities in connection with counting personnel present in the installation. Six of the investigation reports reported significant preparedness deficiencies.
The risk of fire appears to be particularly great during the start-up phase of new installations, as well as installations commissioned following a re-build or modification.
Courtesy: PSA


Contribute to the surviving victims of Bhopal by buying my book "Practical Process Safety Management"

March 10, 2017

Chingari trust for young victims of Bhopal disaster- Video

In our busy day to day lives operating chemical plants and maximising production safely, we often forget the miseries that have been inflicted on the poor victims of the Bhopal gas disaster. I have been regularly contributing the sale proceeds of my book to the Chingari trust since 2009. I urge all readers to contribute to the work they are doing for the next generation children who are affected by tragedy. You can see a youtube video of the trust acitvities in this link. 
For those of you who want to donate to the trust from India, here are the details

DETAIL OF THE BANK ACCOUNT FOR DONATION LOCAL REMITTANCE IN INDIA
In favour of : CHINGARI TRUST
Account Number 030072405206
Bank Detail: STATE BANK OF INDIA
Chowk Bazar
113, Marwari Road,
Bhopal - 462001 (M.P.)
Branch Code: 30003
IFSC Code SBIN0030003
Email ID sbi.30003@ sbi.co.in
Telephone No. (0755) 2536188 / 2543248Fax 0755 -2543453


I am making this appeal out of good faith and trust it will receive your due consideration.


 Contribute to the surviving victims of Bhopal by buying my book "Practical Process Safety Management"

March 9, 2017

Electrical safety alert MSHA



Contribute to the surviving victims of Bhopal by buying my book "Practical Process Safety Management"

March 3, 2017

Do not neglect H2S

I was going around a plant recently and I observed H2S odour in two places in the plant - one from one of the chemicals used causing its generation and another from an open sewage manhole. Personnel in the plant were treating the odour as a "normal" occurance. Treat H2S with the respect it deserves or it will kill you.

Contribute to the surviving victims of Bhopal by buying my book "Practical Process Safety Management"