Friday, December 11, 2015

three workers were "charred to death and another seriously"


The hazards of dealing with aluminium fines/dusts in our industry have been placed to the forefront after a series of catastrophes that have claimed hundreds of workers lives. Here is a recent incident that emphasizes that the continued need for safety training involving aluminium fines.

Three workers were today charred to death and another seriously injured in an explosion in a chemical factory in Southern India, police said.

Workers in the factory were making aluminium powder from the aluminium lump by hitting it when it exploded. While one of the workers died on the spot, three others were taken to a Government Hospital over 220 kilometers away from where they were referred to a private hospital 50 kilometers away, police said.

One of the workers died on the way to hospital while another died at the private hospital. The condition of the injured worker is stated to be serious. The factory owner is absconding.  Local police has registered a case.

The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog offers our sincere condolences to the deceased workers’ family, friends, and coworkers. We also pray that the injured worker recovers fully from his burns. 

We assume that a molten metal explosion occurred which resulted in the aluminium fines igniting. We have seen numerous similar incidents with similar incidents. Each and every incident is preventable. The news article stated that the factory owner has absconded. In other words he failed to surrender himself to custody to the local police. 

Please Comment.

1 comment:

  1. I noticed in the write-up that it says: "Workers in the factory were making aluminium powder from the aluminium lump by hitting it when it exploded." It would seem that this is a case of dry-grinding of an Al block to create fines for their chemical reaction. I would not expect to see molten metal at a "chemical plant".

    BUT, it is well known that impact sparks can initiate a combustible dust fire and/or explosion. I would assume that this is a more likely scenario with housekeeping (or lack thereof) as a contributing factor.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for commenting on the Aluminium Plant Safety Blog!