Safety norms thrown to winds at pharma, chemical units?

Safety norms thrown to winds at pharma, chemical units?: “All the three versions will be clubbed and submitted to the District Collector for action,” said Joint Collector-2 D.V. Reddy, who had come to inspect the accident site at Srikar Laboratories.“Firstl

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Accidents, injuries, loss of property, some causes

As per a report, many accidents are happening in China due to poor safety conditions, lack of implementation of regulations and inspections, lack of training, etc.

If enforcement is not strengthened as per the needs of growing economy, it becomes very difficult for regulators to monitor the activities of lakhs of industrial units. The situation may be such that it becomes difficult even to inspect atleast once in lifetime because of huge number of factories, and dismal number of inspectors.

http://www.scmp.com/video/asia/1849125/huge-explosions-rock-tianjin-northeast-china

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/13/tianjin-explosions-china-sends-troops-cleanup

Accident prevention - sharing of information between the Japan factories

A news item on the above subject is interesting to read.

A good effort by Japanese factories to share information to prevent accidents. It is worth emulating by others also. Only that, the participants should not criticize the speakers for sharing the information about the accidents in their facilities. The speakers and their factory management should be appreciated that they came out boldly to tell about accidents  and the lessons learnt to others with a godly view of preventing such accidents in other facilities.

Infrared thermography - use it to know about impending electrical fire in your place

Yesterday (14.12.2012) there was an article in The Hindu, about infrared thermography and its use to detect  heating of electrical systems at the point of electrical cable input joints due to over load, loose contacts, improper wiring, etc. The heat emitted is read by the portable device and temperature is displayed to decide about whether it is within or above the limits. I also heard earlier from my colleagues that wall mounted thermography devices are also available to monitor continuously about critical electrical systems.
As most of the fire mishaps are attributed to electrical short circuit (more than 40%) that led to loss of lives, property damage, use of infrared thermography for electrical safety inspections in residential buildings, shops, public places, etc will help in saving us from the perils of fire.
For a long time, I had this question in mind about knowing the health of electrical wiring in my apartment. Fires in apartments, multi storey buildings endanger human lives of all and one should check about electrical safety aspects in the building.
From my electrician, I found that generally, the wiring lasts for 15-20 years, though industrial wiring lasts for more than 30 years as per information from colleagues in power supply department. However, these are theoretical and based on experience limited to specific conditions.
As the author in his article mentioned, over loading is a reason for electrical fires. Wiring gets deteriorated quickly  under excess loads and the general information about life of electrical cable can't be applied universally. And, it is human tendency to add electrical loads with or without knowledge about electrical safety. At least at home front, it is the lack of knowledge on electrical safety that keeps people to add electrically operated kitchenware, electronics, etc. Tripping of MCBs will not lead to thinking by the residents for reasons, and instead, they just put it back and resume with the work.
And, in factories, it is the greed to prolong till it breaks without understanding or may be underestimating the costs to be incurred in case of fire. It is good that insurance companies are giving a thought to electrical safety audits. In many of my posts in this blog and in my comments in newspaper websites, I stressed upon the role of government agencies, regulators and insurance companies for enforcing electrical safety audit without which heavy premiums, penalties and punishments should be the order of the day. Only then, everybody will become aware of electrical safety and other issues and save themselves from fire mishaps and its consequences.
As mentioned in the article, there is company called CSR Impex Private Limited (C.Vidyasagar Reddy, Ph: 040-65212780, 9440066907)  which is involved in use of this technology for the past ten years to inspect electrical panels of various establishments, especially software companies. (I did not check with the company but as I believe in electrical safety audits to know the healthiness of electrical systems, I thought that I can reproduce this information appeared in the newspaper for use by all).