5 industrial accidents in India within 36 hrs.

It's been more than 36 years since 1984 when India faced major industrial accident in which more than 3500 people died and 10000 affected with methyl isocyanate (MIC). That was the time, when industries was not having many safety devices compared to present days. The automation and programmable logic control has made running industry efficient and safe. Nowadays the use of artificial intelligence is helping enginners in decision making while troubleshooting and normal operations. 

Yesterday Indian industries faced four accidents;

1. Polymer industry; Styrene gas leak in Vizag.

2. Chattisgarh paper meal gas inhalation.

3. Tamilnadu Boiler explosion.

4. Fire into Nashik based industry.

5. 19 migrating labour died on track as goods train passed over them.

In most cases they were performing start up activities post long lockdown.

When the plant runs normal or work goes without accident no one cares. Most of the times people consider safety as “too much safety”. But even a small mishandling or unsafe action may leads to fatal or accident.

Whatever the work is and how important it is, even a small safety practice / device / measure has to be followed or implemented. This can save life, machines and lot of money.

Our 70% power is supplied by Thermal Power plants, of which the first plant commissioned in 1920; still we are experiencing Explosion in Boilers. Boilers are very critical to operate when it comes to pressure control and furnace control. If the three element control is bypassed for any reason the whole safety of boiler gets bypassed. One can control everything manually, but at a time one man can control only one thing / few parameters / a section of plants.

Major accidents in boiler are due to

1. Failure of Safety devices.

2. Failure of material of construction.

3. Error in operations.

Let's consider the case of Paper mill. As such paper mills are very safe to operate; only sections which are having gases are either chlor-alkali units or pulp digestion and bleaching sections. Anyhow only suspicious gas seems to be chlorine in this case.

Though the severity is less and the cleaning was only undergoing, it clearly indicates the failure to fulfill shut down checklist or post shut down checks. Such short cuts always plays important roles in delayed start up activities.

As per reports in media; The gas leaking from Polymer Industry in Vizag is styrene. Which started to leak at 3 am early in the morning. This plant was also shut for lock down. Styrene has melting point of -30 degC and Boiling point of 145 degC. To achieve this temp either one need to provide external heat source or an exothermic reaction need to takes place where the liquid styrene was stored. Styrene is Stable under room temperature, but may polymerize upon exposure to light and heat without no initiator.

It is shipped as monomer with a dissolved inhibitor. Substances which are to be avoided include strong acids, aluminium chloride, strong oxidizing agents, metallic salts, polymerization catalysts and accelerators.  A considerable distance to ignition source is needed. The possibility of reduction in concentration of oxygen in air as a result of large volume of styrene vapour in atmosphere might be reason behind deaths or breathing difficulties.

How the styrene gas leak has happened needed to be studied.

With repeated awareness about crossing the railway tracks. Death are still taking place due to railway accident on tracks. They were tired and slept on track thinking that railways are not working. They were approaching the station to board train for their hometown. The loco pilot tried breaking and blown long horn but couldn't manage to control.

State run Shramik (Labour) express has started with limited capacity, the mode of transfer to reach stations is not enough and clearly stated. No one's failure it's just a fate / coincidence.

Safety is important, to keep ourselves safe from accidents. It should never be bypassed and any process or system alarm to be acknowledged and necessary action to be taken without fail so as to keep plants running safely.

Personal and respiratory safety /hygiene is important to keep ourselves safe from Covid-19. Stay at home and Stay Safe.

- Tushar