Only married men employed in a factory

In a Chinese factory that is engaged in manufacturing pesticides like guanidine nitrate, it is reported that only married men are employed. An explosion in the factory at about 0930 hr on 28th Feb 2012 led to 13 deaths and scores of injuries. The blast led to collapse of a workshop and breakage of window panes in 2 km radius. Tremors were felt by three villages nearby.
I am unable to guess the reason for only married male employees in the factory.

Huge propane storage tank in US to meet 6 month needs

A colorado based company proposes to have a 22.7 million gallon propane insulated tank. In the report, it is stated that locals will vote about the work on the project and describes about the facility, possible effects and measures. The report has some questions and some answers. It is an interesting article. I calculated fireball radius and its duration using the equations mentioned in "Major Hazard Control: A Practical Manual" published by ILO. The fireball radius is 803 m and its duration is 124 seconds. The impact distances for thermal radiation resulting from BLEVE/VCE extend much longer. It reminds me about the incident at New Mexico in the year 1984.
The owners must have taken suitable measures as per applicable NFPA and other regulations. Risk assessment of the proposed facility with its safety features, considering the presence of other manufacturing facilities and their impact will result in a meaningful conclusion.

Responsibility for failure to use PPE

In an article, the court dismissed the claim for the death of an employee as it is found that the employer did everything it can do to impart knowledge, train, issue PPE, conduct weekly meetings and toolbox meetings and so on.
Still, I feel effective supervision and not engaging the person when the employee refuses to wear PPE could have prevented such incident. Otherwise, why to engage supervisors. Apart from supervisors for safe production activities, site specific monitoring of safety supervision by designated persons will ensure accident prevention.

Road safety - Heavy penalties for traffic offences

As per a report in the year 2010, 1.3 lakh persons died due to road accidents. A study reveals road accidents cost the nation about Rs 1,00,000 crore.  There will be many road accidents which go unreported and authorities come to know of the accidents only when persons are seriously injured and require medical help.
Government proposes to penalize heavily those caught on the road with drunken driving/mobile use during driving/over speeding/jumping the signal/driving without helmet or seatbelt/using vehicle without registration. The government proposes penalties for first offence ranging from Rs 500 to 10,000 and for subsequent offences upto Rs 20,000. Dangerous driving and mobile use invite jail term also upto 2 years.
On this aspect, in earlier post way back in the year 2008-9, I felt the same.

Apart from penalising those with dangerous/unsafe driving, pedestrians crossing the roads without waiting for easing of road traffic, roadside business persons encroaching the roads, persons parking vehicles on the road also should be penalised heavily as they are also responsible for a number of road accidents and deaths.
And those caught with traffic offences should be forced to work on social service activities like cleaning the roads, schools, performing traffic control duties, etc.

Many times, to save the persons on the roads, vehicle drivers move away  and this during speed causes skidding/loosing control/hitting the road divider or street pole, etc leading to fall of the driver, toppling of the vehicle, hitting some other person/vehicle, etc and injury/death.

Government proposes to use 50% of the fines collected to use for road safety fund. Apart from this, I wish government gives 25% of the fines collected as incentive to the traffic police. In my earlier posts on the same topic, I opined to give some basic salary to the traffic police and allow them to take penalty amount as their income. This will also reduce burden on the government to maintain huge staff and encourage to recruit more and more traffic police all over the country by respective authorities. I also suggested in earlier posts to takeover properties of offending drivers/vehicle owners to teach lessons for life. In a situations where words are not enough, only actions / measures like above will control road accidents and save lakhs of lives.

Fire from weld sparks causes 6 injuries, Rs 10 crore property damage

In a fire due to weld sparks on top floor of a shrimp feed factory falling on the plastic bags kept below causes injuries to six employees and property damage worth Rs 10 crore. Three workers fainted due to smoke from the fire and another three were injured due to fall while climbing down. It is reported that fire extinguishers in the factory did not function at the time of the incident, indicating poor upkeep of safety systems.
Any hazardous work in a factory requires following safety permit systems which helps in hazard assessment and taking suitable safety measures for the work. Weld sparks can fly off about 15 m distance and hence the area within this should be free from combustibles. It is better to spray water in this area before hot work. If it is not possible to remove combustibles within this area, they should be covered with fire resistant cloth.
In this incident, sparks fell on the combustible material in the floor below. As the extent of damage is huge and fire extinguishing took about 5 hours, it indicates lack of supervision.
There should be a program to check fire extinguishers at regular intervals, say, once in a quarter. In extinguishers containing CO2 cartridge, the quality of these should be checked as it is likely that any defect renders fire extinguisher useless.
Regular training of all employees or identified employees and ensuring their availability atleast in minimum number in every shift also must be ensured.

Bath tub paint stripper is harmful

Methylene chloride (MC) is used to remove the paint of bath tub for renovation. It is reported that 13 deaths occurred while using this. The main hazards stated are from inhalation and skin exposure and it is a carcinogen.
http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/methylenechloride/

Permissible exposure is 25 ppm (TLV-TWA) for 8 hr and 125 ppm (TLV-STEL) for 15 minute period
It is anaesthetic and inhalation can cause mental confusion, light-headedness, nausea, vomiting, headache. Continued exposure may cause increased light-headedness, staggering, unconsciousness, and even death. High vapor concentrations may also cause irritation of the eyes and respiratory tract. Exposure to MC may make the symptoms of angina (chest pains) worse. Skin exposure to liquid MC may cause irritation. If liquid MC remains on the skin, it may cause skin burns. Splashes of the liquid into the eyes may cause irritation.
Long-term (chronic) exposure: Studies on rats, mice indicate MC causes cancer.
OSHA interprets results to mean that there is suggestive (but not absolute) evidence that MC is a human carcinogen.
Generally bathrooms are small and the ventilation in it will be poor. While cleaning, it is likely that the doors also will be closed and persons working inside will be exposed to vapors.
One has to wear suitable respiratory protection and skin protection and someone must keep watch on the person doing the cleaning job.

Many chemicals used for cleaning jobs at home cause skin burns or atleast itching and not much awareness is seen in this aspect. I saw some books for home safety. But, every chemical can/container for home use shall have hazards and safety precautions printed in readable font size so that users can take care of themselves.

Plan in advance to fill vacant posts

In any organization, manpower attrition is a continuous phenomenon. People retire and new persons fill in those posts. However, there will be a gap when we do not get persons as skilled as those who retired or moved out. It may be difficult to find who will be resigning, as generally, we do not get information in advance. However, we know who is going to retire as per the organization's service norms. If we fill the posts after the retirement, then there will be skill gap and plant operations will be at risk. 

To avoid such issues and also to take care of attrition due to resignations/deaths, it is better to have a reserve strength (like bench in software companies) to make use of these persons any time as the need arises. 

Therefore, it is always preferable to have posts, say 5 % of total organizations strength, particularly in technical field as reserve/bench. The cost of maintaining this reserve strength with needed skills though, may appear costly / avoidable to the finance managers, will prove to be advantageous when we are in neck deep trouble because of lost productivity, or regulatory issues arising from incidents resulting due to poor skills of freshly recruited persons employed in place of experience hands, etc.

Afterall, one can't compromise with safety.

Prison fire in Honduras

A prison fire in Honduras caused more than 300 deaths. Reports say that fire was initiated on Tuesday night by an inmate by burning the mattress. The jail is overcrowded at the time of the incident. Some died in the cells due to burns and or suffocation before they could be freed. More than 475 escaped. Delayed justice is shown as the reason for overcrowding of prisons in the country. It is stated that some inmates escaped by pushing roof panels.
Though the fire started by burning mattress, it is not clear how it could have spread without presence of combustibles in the entire prison in continuity. Else, fire could have been limited to the cell in which it was initiated. This shows lack of monitoring by jail staff or there could have been some help within. It is also not clear whether any fire detection and sprinkler system is available in all cells which is required as per NFPA for residential and commercial buildings.

Office safety

An article in smartplanet.com states that those working for long hours in offices are likely to have increased levels of polyfluorinated compounds (PFCs) in their blood. Though the sample size of 31 is small, if we look at it in a spirited manner, the study says that those in new buildings wherein use of furniture with PFC is more, have more PFC in their blood stream compared to others.
Hence, if the sample is size is more, the percentage of persons exposed to PFC may be high or low. Whatever the statistics say, even if a fraction is exposed and risks the health of the persons, then measures have to be taken to protect these people.
Apart from this, it is well known that carpets are a major source for germs that affect the health of the persons. Further, in closed buildings, where air is recirculated will also have an effect on the health of the persons. When we enter conference rooms that are not in regular use and where ventilation is switched only before use, we get foul smell. Added to these, the new finding of PFCs will add to workers woes in offices.

Product safety - recall of coffee makers

http://www.claimsjournal.com/news/national/2012/02/10/200823.htm

A coffee maker agency is recalling its equipment as there were reported incidents of splashing of coffee during brewing causing burns. I think, research departments of manufacturers should test thoroughly their products before releasing into the markets to adhere to the deadlines. Heavens will not fall if deadlines are skipped for genuine reasons. However, the initiative of recall is good on the part of the agency.