Archive for the ‘Chemical Accidents’ Category
Friday, June 11th, 2010
In Dec. of 2004, I attended a conference in India to commemorate 20 years of Bhopal. After the conference, a few attendees took a train to Bhopal to visit the plant site. While in Bopal I visited my aunt - her name is Maya. She was in her house in Bhopal ...
Posted in Chemical Accidents, Process Safety, Regulations | 1 Comment »
Friday, June 4th, 2010
As safety professionals, we are often required to consider value of life in decision making.
So, what is the economic value of a life? According to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), it is $5.8 million. Click on the link below to read more...
http://ostpxweb.dot.gov/policy/reports/080205.htm
Posted in Chemical Accidents, Process Safety, Risk Analysis | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
I had been away from writing blog posts for last 3 months or so...mainly because of my travel to S. Korea. I have also been kept busy working on adding advanced features to Risk and Safety site. I will unveil them in the coming few months.
I hope to get back ...
Posted in Chemical Accidents, Process Safety, Risk Analysis | No Comments »
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
A friend of mine, Dr. Ben Thomas, recently forwarded me a video showing a man escaping incident in matter of seconds.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rapvHU3aoCw
Note: The video is probably not real as indicated by comments below it but if it is the person in the video is indeed very very lucky.
Posted in Chemical Accidents, Human Factors, Risk Analysis | No Comments »
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
In December 2005, fire and explosion at Buncefield oil storage depot injured 40 people. Overfilling of a fuel storage tank (Tank 912) led to release of unleaded gasoline (petrol) which formed a cloud of flammable vapor that subsequently ignited.
Puerto Rico Fire
Four years after Buncefield, around midnight on October 23, 2009, a ...
Posted in Chemical Accidents, Fires and explosions, Incident Investigation | 3 Comments »
Monday, October 19th, 2009
According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), there were 11 deaths every 100,000 workers in India in 2005. This number was two in the US and 0.01 in Japan. What is scary is that the number of fatalities may be significantly underestimated because of absence of a formal accident tracking ...
Posted in Chemical Accidents, Process Safety, Regulations | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
CSB’s approach to chemical accident investigation is a step further than OSHA’s. CSB gathers background information about the accidents, performs a detailed root cause study, and makes recommendations to appropriate stakeholders. Great approach to a complex issue...but CSB’s strategy following the investigation leaves a lot to be desired.
The hope from ...
Posted in Chemical Accidents, Process Safety, Regulations | 2 Comments »
Friday, July 31st, 2009
On the morning of July 19, a fire in CITGO's Corpus Christi refinery injured a worker. The incident occurred in the alkylation unit of the refinery.
The refinery used Hydrogen Fluoride (HF) as a catalyst for alklyation . Typically in the alkylation process, isobutane and olefins are combined (in presence of ...
Posted in Chemical Accidents, Inherent Safety, Toxicity | 4 Comments »
