Ammonia reactor blast - 10 persons injured

As per news reports, a brine unit chiller with ammonia exploded on Saturday i.e 28.06.2014, leading to ammonia leak, injuring 10 persons with burns. As per some other reports, 11 persons got injured in the incident. Persons suffered suffocation, breathlessness and giddiness.
To clear the choking of brine in the chilling unit, steam was admitted which led to expansion of ammonia (anhydrous?) and pressure rise that causing explosion.
As per reports in some other news papers, use of steam instead of hot water led pressure rise. Hot water use limits the temperature compared to steam and may be this is one of the reasons for the incident.
Reports indicating fire extinguished rise questions of whether it is ammonia fire or any other fire.

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/andhra_pradesh/11-Hurt-in-Pharma-Unit-Blast-3-Critical/2014/06/29/article2306006.ece

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/10-injured-in-blast-at-drug-unit/article6158709.ece

Safety department in the plant – boon or bane?

Governments made it mandatory to have a dedicated safety department in every plant/facility conforming to certain minimum conditions considered as hazardous. Generally, the role of the safety officer specified in the applicable legislations is to advice and assist the plant officials to carryout –

hazard identification, job hazard studies, accident investigation, procurement of safety devices, conduct of safety promotional campaigns, safety competitions, etc.

Further, it should also conduct monitoring inspections to evaluate safety performance, investigate select accidents/near misses, maintain records, etc.

However, when we hear/read from media about occurrence of accidents everyday at some plant or the other, it appears that the safety departments in these facilities are not effective by themselves or concerned plant managements are not heeding to their advice.

Having a separate safety department in every facility along with other departments like production, maintenance, quality, HR, administration, security, etc may be giving the impression to the other departments that safety in the work area is not their job(work/headache). And these departments may also be of the view that it is the safety department which should identify the hazardous conditions and ALSO to rectify them WITHOUT bothering them (i.e production, etc).

Such views are against the role specified by the legislations and clearly the importance of safety department is lost when such views are also supported by the top management. Clearly, safety department cannot go hand in glove situation with other departments, they confrontation is not the solution. Safety department should act tough with erring departments. If the role of safety department is limited by not listening to their advice, then the safety in the concerned facility is doomed and accidents will be just waiting to happen.

One should realize that safety is a line function i.e everybody in the organization should make it happen and not that of staff function i.e it is not the duty of safety department staff alone. If any plant management thinks it is staff function, then safety will not improve in that plant and the expenditure on safety department staff (salaries) is waste. May be they can only show to visitors that they are complying with legislations, they are spending so much, etc and make them scapegoats in case of any accident. This is true, as of late, filing cases on safety department officials along with other department officials is on the rise. It is easy to tell that the safety officer did not caution them about the hazards though clearly, it is the responsibility of the work area in-charge. 

The occurrence of accidents at work places that come to our notice through media, and the possible reasons as above sometimes lead to the conclusion that it is better to abolish the safety department by legislation and to make concerned plant management responsible for ensuring safety. Nobody should be designated as safety officer or person responsible for safety, even within each department as the results will be same.

The responsibilities of every department in-charge should include safety also, apart from other responsibilities. The issues to be discussed   in every review meeting should include all issues like, production, quality, safety, maintenance, developmental activities, projects, etc (need not be in that order, but all issues should be reviewed without fail).

Such procedure will make the in-charges to give equal time to all issues and ensure a safe work place for all.

Bullying safety officer is like hitting under your own pants

Those who do not like safety officers to inspect their areas for identifying hazardous conditions and also pick up arguments to make/scare them not to visit their works areas will not help to improve the situation. It will only spiral the hazardous conditions and can lead to accidents on a large scale at a later date.
Clearly, there are provisions in related regulations to penalize and also punish the works managers for violations. It is a matter of time before the law catches up with the violators.

Unless these works managers realize the importance of safety and learn the punishments that await the (willful) violators, there is no light for the safety of the persons working in  work areas managed by such persons who are no different from murderers.

Injuries / deaths to employees in those work areas can be compared to planned murders/attempts to cause injuries as works managers neither take action to prevent unsafe conditions not help the safety professionals to identify and suggest safety measures.

Unfortunately, safety officers are not vested with powers like that of regulators and thus will be at the receiving end unless the in-charge of the facility gives unconditional support. Else, at some time or other, the safety department officials either will keep quiet leaving the matters to the fate or will look for better opportunities in other companies. Either way, it is the loss to the company having such safety culture.