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May 7, 2020

Gas leak at Viskhapatnam

Its very tragic to see the gas leak at LG polymers India Limited, today at Visak, with many people affected. The styrene gas leak reportedly occured from a storage tank. It pains me that we are continuing to have such incidents in the land of Bhopal. The Government did bring out a chemical safety and security rating system in 2013, but it died a natural death. See this article https://www.business-standard.com/content/b2b-chemicals/safety-rating-for-chemical-plants-a-step-in-right-direction-113102400722_1.htmlhttps://www.business-standard.com/content/b2b-chemicals/safety-rating-for-chemical-plants-a-step-in-right-direction-113102400722_1.html
This is what I has posted in my Linkedin account:
Will we ever learn from Bhopal?
It's really tragic to see scenes of people, including children, lying helplessly on the sides of the road in TV footage of the gas leak from LG polymers India Limited, Visakhapatnam. As I had mentioned in earlier posts, the late chair of the CSB, Carolyn Merritt asked me in 2004, the reason why PSM is not mandatory in India. I am still waiting for an answer. Even if PSM is made mandatory in India, the enforcing authorities lack the relevant competence to audit PSM systems. They are also highly understaffed. The ghosts of Bhopal are continuing to haunt us. In the recent COVID 19 deaths in Bhopal, a number of deaths were the victims of the gas leak in 1984, that had already weakened their health.

4 comments:

  1. The Link doesnt work. please post an updated one.
    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have updated the post with what I had posted on Linkedin.

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  2. Hi the link you posted were not working. also can you add so more material on this incident. it is to my knowledge by studying a lot of MSDS for Styrene gas monomer that it is not lethal. what could have actually happened in this case to case so many deaths?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have updated the post with what I had posted on Linkedin.
      We have to wait for the RCA report. There is no point in speculating. The High Power committee has been requested to submit the report by June 10th, as per newspapaer reports. Lets hope it is made public

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