Chemical leak in Shanghai kills 15, sickens dozens

Chemical leak in Shanghai kills 15, sickens dozens

Ammonia leak from a food processing company led to deaths and many more were affected. About 200 fire fighters were involved in water spray to dissolve ammonia.

It is stated that earlier in June in some other company, an ammonia leak led fire and more than 100 died.

Incidents of ammonia fire are rare to find compared to toxic deaths.
LINK

About HF spill in Gumi City - updates in Chemical World

The report in the following link gives some important information about leakage of eight tonnes of HF. The police stated that workers did not follow safety procedures for unloading to save some time. The company or local government does not have slaked lime for neutralization of HF and they could get the same only after one day of the incident. The fire fighters are not aware of the chemical spilled or the hazards of HF as they came with normal fire fighting and personal protective equipment.
It is stated that as per CCTV footage seen, workers tried to transfer the HF from tanker by connecting an air hose to a valve in the tank and the white vapors at high pressure from the tank engulfed the workers. And, when firefighters sprayed the water, the spilled acid spread further.
Pressure transfer system is fraught with dangers and many incidents were reported in such transfers across the world.
The above incident is a lesson for us that

• we should review chemical transfer methods
• carry HAZOP study to know the hazards, consequences and measures to be taken
• train the workers and supervisors about the hazards and procedures to be followed
• ensure display of procedure, material safety data sheets for the chemicals used
• provide sufficient capacity of secured collection pit for collecting neutralized acid or for collecting acid and they to do neutralization
• ensure availability of scrubbing/neutralization system for maximum credible scenario
• ensure supervision during the work, etc

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2012/11/hydrofluoric-acid-gumi-korea-leak-hube
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/pdfs/76-143f.pdf

CSB video - W.Va. chemical leak

As per Chemical Safety Board (csb.gov.in) investigation, the three chemical leaks in 33 hr, causing death of a person are due to ineffective alarm, poor maintenance, failure to carryout proper investigation of near misses and emergency response system. CSB said that the person taking readings near the tanks, could have been saved if tanks had enclosures.The hose for phosgene transfer which leaked and sprayed on the person causing death, as per company policy, is to be changed once in a month, but was not done for the last 7 months. The report says, each of the three leaks were preceded by an incident (near miss- a warning sign). The suggestion of an employee for replacing with better material hose was not listened as it was costly. The incident made it more costly to the company. This proves again and again that safety is never costly and in the words of Mr Om P.Kharbanda, SAFETY IS FREE! - IN FACT IT PAYS!!

Before 1984 accident in Bhopal also, a person died because of phosgene spray.

http://www.csb.gov/newsroom/detail.aspx?nid=383
CSB releases video of deadly W.Va. chemical leak - BusinessWeek
http://blogs.wvgazette.com/watchdog/2011/09/23/csb-was-alarmed-by-series-of-dupont-incidents/
http://ehstoday.com/safety/management/dupont-prioritize-cost-safety-0713/