Container overturns ...28 injured...

stock photo not from the incident

The handling of molten aluminium occurs in factories outside our industry on a daily basis with no incidents. But, on occasion when an incident occurs it can have severe consequences. Here is a recent story:

In a serious industrial accident in Europe during the first week of July 2019 , 28 people were injured one afternoon - one of them seriously.

According to a police report, at 2.45 pm, a container was overturned when working on a smelting furnace in a factory. This resulted in hot, liquid aluminum pouring on the factory floor. One worker was badly injured and many more workers suffered smoke poisoning. A total of 14 people had to be admitted to hospitals, and another 14 were treated by the rescue service on site. The cause of the accident has not yet been finally clarified. According to the current state, an operator error on the machine is assumed. The resulting property damage should amount to about 100,000 euros.

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The Aluminium Plant Safey Blog has posted incidents in the past involving manufacturing plants involving accidental molten metal spills. These spills commonly involve workers rushing through a task that they previously have done successfully before countless times. Or the spill is result of a cracked crucible. The numerous news media articles do not state equipment failure. They do mention consistently operator error. One news media article states “a container overturned” resulting “A worker was injured directly at the foot by the hot aluminum". In our experience the worker was either not wearing the proper footwear while working with molten metal or the molten metal poured into the worker’s boot. Regardless, from past experience the worker’s injuries are probably very very serious. One would expect third degree burns to a foot that comes in contact with molten metal.

In addition to the operator being burned, workers in the nearby vicinity required medical assistance from inhaling fumes. It would be our opinion that the molten metal came into some combustible and ignited. Reports state that no flames were visible. Regardless, the smoke generated from the molten metal forced 14 workers to the hospital. While another 14 workers were treated at the factory for inhalation problems.

We pray that all of the injured workers recover fully from this incident. We hope that the company will investigate this incident and develop training and engineering controls to prevent this from occurring in the industry.

A great useful reference guide when working with molten aluminium would be the Aluminium Association’s “Guidelines for Handling Molten Metal”. That document can be found here.

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