Chlorine leak from cylinder at Mumbai Port Trust

It is reported in TV and websites of newspapers that on 14.07.2010 at about 0315 hrs, chlorine liquid leaked from one of the 105 cylinders seized by customs in 1994 years ago and kept at Mumbai Port Trust (BPT) scrap yard. Out of 141 cylinders, five were full and others were empty. Chlorine leaked from one of these 5 cylinders. More than 100 persons (126) were admitted in various hospitals and more than 500 persons in the area were evacuated. Services of Fire brigade, National Disaster Response Team and other agencies are utilized to bring the situation under control. Subsequently the chlorine in 5 cylinders was neutralized which could have been done long before.

Disposal of gas cylinders is a major issue and is to be as per Gas Cylinder Rules. The scrolling news in a TV channel mentioned that BPT asked Controller of Explosives to dispose the seized cylinders and as there is no response, cylinders were left as such. Controller of Explosives is not the agency for disposal of cylinders. They are regulators to issue licences for storage and handling. It is not known why the cylinders were seized by customs. However, BPT should have asked the person (consignee) responsible for bringing the cylinders to dispose or BPT should have disposed and collected the charges. Disposal means what we can do?. Either give the cylinders to users of chlorine or neutralize the gas in controlled manner.

Apart from the above incident of leaving gas cylinders in scrap yard, few months back we read that radioactive sources belonging to Delhi University were found in the scrap yard of scrap collector. In a book, I read that when someone was cutting a big pipe, a cylinder was found inside the pipe. There must be several gas cylinders lying for several years in scrap yards and storage areas of several industries where we do not know the contents. They have to kept atleast in shaded areas till such time the history of the cylinders can be established. Else, they may leak after sometime because of exposure sun and rains. If someone is doing hot work near such cylinders not knowing about their presence, cylinders may explode and result in fatalities or injuries. Guidelines were issued by CSB for hot work and a video is available in the website (www.csb.gov) about hazards of hot work. Several videos of CSB are also available on Youtube.

What one can do to such incidents is to dispose the cylinders as soon as they arrive by use or neutraliztion or incineration as the case may be. If not possible, they should be stored properly and history cards maintained. For those cylinders already lying in the backyards for several years, we have to shift them to safe storage areas and efforts are to be put to trace the history. If contents and supplier name are readable from the cylinder, then we can dispose them in a suitable manner.