Archive for the ‘Chemical Accidents’ Category

Top Five Risk and Safety Blog Posts for 2010

Monday, December 27th, 2010

Below is a list of top five blog posts for this year. 1. SO2 vs. H2S: Which is more toxic? 2. Physical Explosions: LNG Rapid Phase Transitions (RPT) 3. Nitrogen Asphyxiation Hazards 4. Natural Gas Pipelines: Is there a Safer Alternative? 5. 174 Times and then KaBoom Happy holidays. See you next year.

Another Biodiesel Fire…hopfully the last one for 2010!

Wednesday, December 15th, 2010

Readers of this blog are familiar with the biofuel incident trend that I have written about in previous posts. https://risk-safety.com/risksafetynewsite/category/biofuels/ Based on what I have researched, the incident frequency of a fire/explosion in biodiesel plant is 10 weeks, i.e. every two and half months there is a fire or explosion in a biodiesel ...

Pipeline Incident Data

Thursday, November 4th, 2010

Below is summary (annualized average) of 20-year pipeline incident data from 1990-2009. [Source: Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration,PHMSA]   [TABLE=15] PHMSA defines Significant Incidents as those incidents reported by pipeline operators when any of the following specifically defined consequences occur: fatality or injury requiring in-patient hospitalization $50,000 or more in total costs, measured in 1984 dollars Highly ...

Value of Life

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

Risk and Safety

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 ...

Near-Miss(es)!!!

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.

History Repeats Itself: Buncefield, Puerto Rico, Jaipur

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 ...

Industrial Safety in Slumdog Millionaire Nation

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 ...

Refinery Fire Raises Questions About HF Usage

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 ...