Explosion at the Nypro UK Works in Flixborough, South Humberside - Article Example

Explosion at the Nypro UK Works in Flixborough, South Humberside Introduction The disaster in entailed a chemical plant blast near the Flixborough, a village in the United Kingdom. This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the catastrophe as it occurred on 1st June 1994, killing over twenty-five people and 36 injured out of over the seventy-two present during the time of explosion. The casualties would have been many if the blast took place during the normal working hours and this created a lot of tension in other chemical plants around the globe, but mostly in United Kingdom. Most investigators and other involved personnel are not sure of the cause of the explosion but the workers claim that it was due to a rapid alteration of the normal routine by the management causing technical issues in the engineering sector hence the explosion (Russell 2014). The management and the concerned parties in the field overlooked the latent penalties that could result from the sudden change. Overview of the Plant and the Disaster The plant was property of Nypro UK, founded a few years before the explosion for the production of fertiliser from the waste of steelwork factory near the area. After a certain period, they switched to producing caprolactam, a biochemical that facilitates the manufacture of nylon. In mid-1972, the management made changes on the procedure of making the chemical. Initially, the used the hydrogenation process but they switched to oxidising the hot liquid chemical using compressed air (Allen 2011). The reason for the alteration was to produce larger amounts of the biochemical yearly; definitely, this worked from the beginning and if it had continued to the end of the year, the amount of caprolactam produced could have been twice as much. Finding out a way to produce large amounts was the only way out for them to survive because the government controlled the pricing of the chemical in the country creating pressure. The disaster emanated from a critical outflow of liquid from the cauldron track causing the quick creation of a huge veil of hydrocarbon gas that is highly flammable. The hydrocarbon gas met a furnace causing a massive fuel-air explosion leading to a collapse of the main regulator room where eighteen workers died instantly. There fire caused by the explosion killed another group of nine workers and the last person, a driver, died of a heart attack in his vehicle. The fire continued to burn down the infrastructure inside and outside the plant for a consecutive ten days and a radius of over three miles. Reconstruction of the plant took place a few years later after the explosion and they went back to producing the chemical through hydrogenation like before. This time round, the Health and Safety Executives intervened and oversaw the all the procedures in the plant including the working conditions of the employees and the potential risks (Allen 2011). Evaluation of the Explosion Relative to Health and Safety within the Industry, Neighbouring Areas and Globally The explosion caused a lot of loss, primarily taking the lives of workers, wrecking the 200 million pound chemical plant and conveying trepidation in the neighbouring homes by ripping them apart. It caused a lot of pain both emotionally and physically with the roofs of the houses torn off and everything inside facing destruction. Witnesses of the blast could only tell tales of the trails of blood from injured people as poisonous smoke spread everywhere. The fire fighters and patrolling police tried to keep everybody calm, as people were terrified trying to save what remained of their households while others fled. For a particular farmer, his life took a downfall after the explosion killed more than 2000 of his animals as his buildings collapsed. Surprisingly, even after the explosion, the management asked the workers to get into the remaining parts of the chemical plant and recoup what they could. Significantly, this is just a narrow picture of the havoc caused by the lack of the right safety initiatives; clearly, the management of the chemical plant overlooked the serious aspects of the Health and Safety schedules, process and procedures (Dawson 2012). Looking at health and safety measures, the chemical plant is a subject to the risks that the people in the village Flixborough faced. There was the ill-reputed pipe that passed through the plant and caused most of the destruction of the plant, homes and injuries of people dwelling near where the plant. The Nypro engineers who designed the pipe were not conversant with all the pipework especially where pressure was involved (Allen 2011). Moreover, the management lacked the proper calculations and plans involving the testing of pressure from the pipework; to make matters worse, the pipe did not have any foundation or support with poor framework. The pipe had connections and repairs in different positions but the most crucial was the one that connected to receptacle overhangs where both pressure and gravity played significant roles due to the dogleg curve, and difference in height, putting any person near the pipe at risk of burning or dying from an explosion (Langkulsen 2011). Even after the plant restarted, the pipework had some faults that resulted to a leak causing alarm hence shutdown of all processes to avoid any other hazards. Evidently, the chemical plant lacked the requirements of a good industry practice that govern all the process and modifications putting the workers and people living near it at risk. The management overlooked the necessary safety measures by ignoring a review of the engineering and technical aspects concerning the pipe and the probable implications (Henderson 2012). The pipework review should have been perceptible and the changes made indicated in relation to the pipe’s procedural settings, methods of operation and the best way to engineer its facets. The health and safety of the people of Flixborough was in jeopardy because the engineers failed to consider the environmental conditions with the risk of the pipe leaking or even bursting due to the pressure. Largely, the engineers should have integrated a form of risk assessment to classify the unalike threats affecting the workforce safety and precaution measures implemented to counter the same (Henderson 2012). Essentially, if the management and engineers working on the pipe had implemented such measures (inside and outside the plant) the pipe and the overhangs attached to it would not have ruptured leading to the spill of the cauldrons to escape creating the combustible gas. The decisions making processes of the chemical plant also played a core role in the explosion, once the changes in the production of caprolactam everything started falling apart. Some of the workers said that a reactor had failed a few days before the explosion but the production did not stop as the management persisted on its importance. This poor management and monitoring of the changes to the overall plant and the production process increased the hazard risks; considerably, this is a critical task requiring a lot of analysis and review but most management overlook or are reluctant to seeking specialists. The engineers should have liaised with the management and conclude whether the changes are safe and give provisional directives. Nonetheless, the department in charge could also have made an impact in the decision by evaluating the operation’s, technical, health, safety and environmental aspects of the change, communicating to the management about the possible risks. Resolutely, the valuation of modification to peril is a fundamental fragment of generation of measures; moreover, the gradation of regulation of the change depended on whether the proposed change would have been categorized negligible and foremost technical variations. Conclusion In any chemical plant or factory that deals with biochemical, it is essential that the management and heads of departments uphold passable upkeep, assessment, and avoid unsanctioned design or operational modifications like those that Nypro’s chemical plant approved. Moreover, for health and safety purposes, any change proposed requires evaluation and authorization from the involved parties despite the advantages or objectives met by the alteration. For instance, in this case, if the management had launched a methodological enquiry using knowledgeable persons they would have prevented the explosion. Resolutely, there is no shortcut for any modifications, as they require design, keen construction, inspection, testing and analysis in reference to the original design; additionally, after achieving this, standard maintenance follows to the very end. Reflectively, one of the reactors in the plant failed but the management and the engineers did not do anything about the matter; moreover, they overworked the other reactors not knowing that they would eventually fail also. They would have decided to examine the other reactors as they waited for a report on the cause of the failure of the first one but this would call for the plant’s shutdown, which is what the management avoided. The pipework’s scheme and edifice took place speedily, causing all the complications; moreover, there was no engineer specializing in the field available (Russell 2014). The service engineer available on site did not meet the qualifications, as they would have realised that the concentrated pressure would cause the pipe’s failure. Generally, the modification and lack of supervision proved that the chemical plant did not implement the necessary health and safety measures required in such a setting. Any company’s integrity lies on how they treat the employees and consumers not the profits or self-interests; significantly, once lives are at risk then there is the defilement of conviction. Bibliography Allen, B. 2011, Flixborough- the Price of Nylon: Health and Safety at Work, viewed October 16, 2014, < http://www.healthandsafetyatwork.com/hsw/flixborough-price-of-nylon> Dawson, P. 2012, Occupational Health and Safety Management in Organizations: Faculty of Business, University of Wollongong, Vol.14, no.3, pp.328-344 Henderson, J. 2012, Safety Case Use in Petrochemical Industry: Human Reliability Associates, Vol.5, pp.1-10, viewed October 16, 2014 < http://www.health.org.uk/media_manager/public/75/publications_pdfs/Safety%20cases_supplement%20E.pdf> Langkulsen, U. 2011, Safety and Health in the Petrochemical Industry in Map Ta Put, Thailand: Journal of Occupational Health, Vol.53, no.5, pp.384- 392 Russell, S. 2014, Flixborough Disaster, 40 years on -Remembering Devastating Nypro Explosion that Killed 28: Hull Daily Mail, viewed October 16, 2014, < http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Flixborough-disaster-40-years-Remembering/story-21169337-detail/story.html> Read More