Fire in Plastics Godown in Kolkata

Thanks to Abhay Gujar for sending news about a major fire in a plastics godown in Kolkata. Do we give the same importance for emergency preparedness to godowns and warehouses that store hazardous materials as we do for chemical manufacturing units? See a video of the fire in this link.

6 workers drown in Lucknow Ketchup Factory

Alas, it's happened again. A worker fell into a ketchup tank in a ketchup factory in Lucknow, India. In the process of trying to save her, another 5 co-workers lost their lives. In any confined space entry, the job of the man watch is to call for help if anybody inside needs to be rescued. Train your operators on rescue techniques and most importantly train them to overcome the natural feeling of going inside the confined space without proper protection to rescue a fallen co-worker.
Read more of this incident in this link.

Dangers of chemical reactions

Unexpected chemical reactions are dangerous and can kill.Whenever a new product is envisaged, it must be taken through a proper management of change process, including understanding of process chemistry.Even though this incident happened in 2008, it underscores the importance of knowing what you are doing. Read about the incident in this link.
More recently, another accident occurred at a chemical factory at Ankleshwar where two people died. Read about the incident in this link.

OSHA will not ban Gas Blowing of pipelines

A news article in the Wall street journal mentions the following: "OSHA administrator David Michaels, in a news briefing Thursday, said his agency is putting the power industry "on notice that it is inherently dangerous" to conduct gas blows and he said the industry "must assure worker safety," if it persists.
But he said he wouldn't put an emergency order in place that would prohibit gas blows until the agency studies it further. "We would love to be able to ban it, but we can't," he said.
The chairman of the Chemical Safety Board, which investigated the incident, said Thursday that OSHA's response to the Kleen Energy explosion was insufficient despite it being even though it is the third-largest recommended fine in a single accident in agency history.
"I believe there should be an emergency response to an emergency situation," said Rafael Moure-Eraso, the board's chairman, a former academic.
After the board's probe, big equipment makers including General Electric Co. and Siemens AG said they would tell their customers to substitute compressed air or nitrogen for natural gas. Utility American Electric Power also said it would avoid the procedure based on the board's findings and its own analysis".
Read the full article in this link.

Fire in chemical godown at Bangalore

Thanks to Mr Sritharan for sending the following information:
Please find the news on the fire which broke out in a chemical (solvents and thinners) storage godown in Shivajinagar, Bangalore. The godown was located in a densly populated commercial and residential area. As usual the fire dept says that the godown did not have the necessary license only after the incident and do not have proper procedures to check out these violators.
Also the news reports that the local people started pouring water as soon as they saw the fire without knowing that some water sensitive chemicals can indeed aggrevate the situation. Only the trained fire fighters should handle these types of chemical fires.
Read the news article in this link.

Where does the buck stop in Process Safety Management?

I have been viewing the numerous developments in process safety in India with great interest. The Indian Chemical Council has taken a big interest in Process Safety and is collaborating with the Center for Chemical Process Safety of the US. While it is good that a great awareness of Process Safety Management is being created in India, where does the buck stop as far as Process Safety Management goes? The composition board of directors of many chemical organisations in India are changing with fewer and fewer companies having technically qualified people at the helm.With due respect to the immense experience that other directors bring, I see an erosion in technical competence at the board level. While risk based process safety does bring in process safety metrics to the board's attention, it needs technical competence to analyse these metrics. Ultimately, the culture of the organisation trickles down from the decisions that the board takes. What is the long term solution to this issue? No amount of management systems is going to avoid a catastrophic incident. They will warn you adequately before a big incident happens, but unless someone at the board level is competent to analyse these warnings, you cannot prevent the incident. It boils down to basic human behaviour. Is a director on the board going to pay more attention to what another technically competent director is saying, or to the various process safety metrics he sees displayed but may not fully understand? I leave it to you to decide...
Meanwhile read an interesting article in the Fortune magazine in this link.

Drum bursting hazard - readers innovation

In my earlier post , I had mentioned an incident on the dangers of pesticide technical drums bursting when placed in a hot box or steam heated bath. A couple of readers Mr P.Kadhiravan and Mr P.Thulasiraman of Coromandel International Limited have devised a simple pressure relief system for the technical drums which they place in a steam bath for melting. Their pressure relief device is screwed on to the drum in the bung area after removing the drum cap. A photo of their innovation is shown. Kudos to them! And thanks to them for sharing this information.

Share your incidents!

I thank readers of this blog for their continued support. I request readers to send in short descriptions of process incidents they know, to me at bkprism@gmail.com for publication in the blog. I will give the reader credit for the input. The company's name need not be mentioned.Thanks in advance!

Enforcing Process Safety Management

I always wonder that even in the US where PSM is mandatory and companies face stiff fines, there are always violations taking place. Recently OSHA has proposed to fine a seafood company a total of $279,000, for deficiencies in its process safety management program. "The inspection identified other PSM hazards that resulted in 12 serious citations, with $84,000 in proposed fines. These conditions included failing to update process safety information, conduct an incident investigation of a January 2001 ammonia leak, certify or evaluate the PSM program every three years as required, establish and implement procedures to maintain changes in the process, and provide and document employee training".
Read the full article in this link

Engineering control to avoid deaths

The recent train accident at Sainthia station when a speeding train rammed into a stationary one,has raised many questions.An excellent article in Forbes India magazine describes the various engineering controls that are available to prevent such accidents. The article mentions that "There is a range of technological solutions that can remove the scope for human error and make the system fool-proof. The Indian Railways have experimented with a range of solutions to improve its safety record, but none of them has been scaled up nationwide either due to the lack of budget or simply because the powers-that-be had other priorities. When asked, a senior executive in the Indian railways, in charge of technology implementation, prefers to maintain a stoic silence on the issue. Former railway officials, however, are far less sanguine. “The job must be ruthlessly done and the management must not shy away from shedding blood,” says a former Chairman Railway Board who did not wish to be quoted".
In the chemical process industry also, I observe many cost cutting initiatives affecting engineering controls. As long as nothing happens, nobody dies!
Read the full article in this link.

Gas leak from storage tank

Thanks to Abhay Gujar for sending this news. The Hindustan Times has reported a gas leak from a chemical company in Kalyan. Another article reports that the gas that leaked was Hydrochloric acid.
Read more about the incident in this link
The MSDS of Para Toluene Sulfonyl Chloride which was reportedly stored in the tank, indicates that it is water reactive. Read the MSDS in this link.

Safety valves and runaway reactions

I was participating in a HAZOP study of a reactor where a runaway reaction was possible.There was a serious discussion about the reaction kill system, when one of the participants asked what the operators will do if a runaway reaction occurs. The operations chief who was participating immediately answered - run away!He had witnessed an actual runaway reaction in which the reactor started rumbling, gaskets blew, safety valve lifted,and the operators ran away. Know the design basis of your safety valves. This is important for management of change and for writing operating procedures.