"caused burn injuries to four workers..."

The use of scrap as a source of raw material is commonplace throughout our industry. But, the grade of scrap companies’ use vary. With that variety the hazard increase in many ways. Here is an example of what can happen when use low grade scrap.

The events occurred at 11:30 one morning during the last week in January 2020 in aluminium company in Latin America.

According to the first reports, the furnace that melts aluminum was overheated and the workers when trying to suffocate it suffered burns.

Civil Protection elements of local state government came to the aid and stifled the flames.

The injured were identified as four workers, who were taken to the local hospital, with first-degree burns in various parts of the body.

Apparently the causes that caused the incident were caused by human error.

We pray that the injured workers recover fully from their injuries. There is much of this incident that remains unknown. We are in the process of reaching out to this company and will update with any information.

What is known is that this company has had repeated explosions. Though the news media article above states that furnace “overheated”. Other news media report that an explosion took place. We confirmed that with our industry contacts in that area. We also learned that this plant has had numerous explosion prior to this incident where four workers were injured. That scenario where previous explosions leads to a larger explosion has historical precedent. Too many companies have been blown up, too many workers have been injured or killed at companies who fail to find out why explosions are occurring.

It appear that this company use low grade scrap that may contain oil as a charging source. Which can be done with the proper equipment and machinery. It appears that this company does not have the proper equipment nor the proper procedures to handle charging oil scrap safely. Why? This is atleast the 4^th recent explosion that this company has suffered.

One explosion is too many, two explosions means your processes are incorrect and need to be immediately researched to find out how to prevent explosions from occurring. When you investigate almost every large catastrophic explosion in the past you will find that each company had suffered through a series of explosions. With every explosion growing in ferocity and damage. Almost everyone. What you soon realize is the common trait of these companies is their failure to either acknowledge the seriousness of the issue or failure to properly investigate each explosion. If your company feels that explosions are just a nature of production, you are wrong! Dead wrong.

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