We are nothing after our death. Let us donate our body organs for the poor.

Be not afraid of anything. You will do marvelous work The moment you fear, you are nobody - Swamy Vivekananda

If you think safety is expensive, try an accident... - O.P.Kharbanda

Preventable accidents, if they are not prevented due to our negligence, it is nothing short of a murder - Dr. Sarvepalli Radha Krishna, 2nd President of India

Zero accidents through zero unsafe behaviors. Do not be complacent that there are no accidents. There may be near miss accidents (NMAs). With luck/chance, somebody escaped knowingly or unknown to the person. But, we can't be safe, if we depend upon the luck.

Safety culture is how the organization behaves when no one is watching.

We make No compromise with respect to Morality, Ethics, or Safety. If a design or work practice is perceived to be unsafe, we do not proceed until the issue is resolved. - Mission statement by S&B Engineers & Consultants Ltd. http://www.sbec.com/safety/

Human meat gets least priority - A doctor's comment on accidents

CSB video excerpts from Dr.Trevor Kletz, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQn5fL62KL8

Mar 29, 2011

Gas cylinder leak

I heard an incident from my friend about LPG leak and fire. After the cylinder became empty, a filled cylinder was connected and when the burner was lit, leak was suspected. To ensure that the gas is leaking, they tested it by taking a lit match stick. Immediately, it caught fire at the regulator and they cried loud for help. Hearing the cries, a person outside, assuming robbery attempt, came with a stick. Seeing the fire, he hit the regulator with the stick which dislodged the regulator and gas fire also stopped.

Mar 23, 2011

Fire and fatalities during material movement in a lift

In an accident, two persons died while moving a medicine in large quantity through a material handling lift for repacking. It is stated that the material is combustible and the vapors caught fire and a spark caused fire and deaths.
As per the reports from various news papers, it appears that the material is combustible, volatile (vapour release), improperly packed, taken in large quantities, persons are inside a material handling lift, ignition source (spark) is present and trapped persons were unable to escape. 

What can be done to prevent such accidents in our workplace?

Mar 16, 2011

LPG leak - lack of preparedness to attend emergency

As per reports (1, 2, 3, 4) appeared in news papers, an LPG tanker with 15 T of LPG, moving on the road had a brush with tree branches leading to crack on roto gauge and LPG release.
Immediately driver and a resident in the area informed it to the fire brigade. The fire brigade and the police after reaching the spot in 15 minutes, started spraying water to dilute gas concentration and informed the supplier who reached after three hours without needed tools/materials.

The driver covered the crack with a cloth and the local fire brigade covered the crack with M-seal and POP after moving the vehicle to a school, away from traffic. Locals were advised by fire brigade not to lit/smoke in the area to avoid fire/explosion. The traffic was stopped ahead and diverted.

Mar 15, 2011

Emergency - rumours

I received an e-mail which warned all people to stay indoor for the next 24 hr as radiation from Fukushima reactor explosion can spread across nearby nations. Even some friends also were seen discussing about the same. I do not know how is it possible when the incident is not like what happened in Chernobyl in 1986. A search in the internet reveals that this advise is for people staying within 30 km of the nuclear plant and not for everybody on the globe. The denial at BBC website is available here.

Ammonia explosion

I got this news item through google alerts. Many of us do not believe about explosion due to ammonia but this news item proves that it can happen. Personally, I too do not knew about it until I read about ammonia explosions in "What Went Wrong?" by Trevor Kletz. After a long time, I came across an ammonia explosion.

Nuclear emergency in Japan

The earthquake on 11.03.2011 followed with tsunami and nuclear emergency at Fukushima reminded me of Murphy's law. There was power outage. The pumps for cooling the reactors could not be operated by DG sets. The engineers of the nuclear plant are trying hard with available limited resources. Already there are reports of increase in radiation levels.

What lessons we can learn from this incident in a chemical plant?

Mar 10, 2011

Giant Acid Cloud in Nevada Desert

BBS-Reaction and Response

I read a post in http://www.lifeplan.co.nr/ dated 07.03.2011 on reaction vs response. It made be to realize about our behavior to different situations, let it be office or road or home. This can be used in safety training programmes also while talking about behavior based safety.

Mar 9, 2011

Spread of acid fumes from broken bottles to three villages

A news item in Hindu news paper today is about leakage and impact of acid fumes on residents of three villages. The leakage and spread of fumes from possible broken bottles containing bromine (HBr?) caused health complications such as irritation in the eyes, trachea and stomach, coughing, nausea, skin allergy. Another report says about the quantity stored as 40 bottles of each 750 ml. And as per another report, it is stored in 2 and 5 lit bottles and liquid bromine from one broken bottle reacted with husk in the area. I am unable to guess what quantity of the chemical leaked that caused spread of thick fumes to three villages affecting the people. 
A report on the same incident mentions

Height of guard railing

Last week, there was water drip in the bedroom from the indoor unit of split AC. I went to the outdoor unit located on the chajja (sun shade) outside in the balcony, suspecting water pipe choke. I found that somebody put the water pipe in vertical position and is above its elevation in the indoor unit. This chajja is accessible to anyone on the stairs of the apartment complex. While trying to put it horizontal on the window chajja by standing on the stairs floor and bending, I nearly lost balance.
I got doubt what should be the height of the guard rail and a search in internet and factory legislations mention

Mar 7, 2011

Competitive world - Stress on safe production

In his address to the National Governors' Association, President of USA said,

"We now live in a world that's more connected and more competitive than ever before. When each of you tries to bring new jobs and industries to your state, you're not just competing with each other but you're competing with China, you're competing with India, you're competing with Brazil, you're competing with countries all around the world".
And a US trade report states about increased US exports to India and Indian investment in US and the need for more responsibility by the emerging economies like India, China, etc towards global economic growth.

The message lays stress on competition.

Wrong signals - a nearmiss experience

Yesterday, I went  to see my friend staying about 20 km from my residence. I went on a 2-wheeler and stopped at a traffic signal. A car was on my right with right indicator blinking. When the traffic signal turned green, I moved straight and this car on my right instead of going straight or right turned left. I was just ahead of it and would have fell down had the left moving car bumped my vehicle. My heart pounded fast for few minutes.
A similar incident happened earlier few months ago which I mentioned in my earlier post wherein I was hit by a car and I fell on the road. Few years ago, when I was going to my office, again, I had a near miss, this time from another 2-wheeler with wrong signals. I was going straight and the scooter with left indicator ON, moved right. The driver shouted at me and when I pointed him to his left indicator, he laughed and drove off.

This type of driving with wrong signals is very dangerous and we have to be careful on the road, more so at junctions, irrespective of the indicators on the other vehicles.

Mar 5, 2011

Distraction during work

An article mentions about distractions and interruptions at work arising out of phone calls, visitors, etc and its impact on time to get back to work with same concentration. It says that on average, everyday a desk worker loses 2.1 hrs. Apart from colleagues in the same department, there will be visits by some unexpected visitors without notice which one has to give some time. Then there are some who keep talking on phone. You may want something, but

Mar 4, 2011

Population growth - impact on environment and safety

A report says that by the year 2050, our planet will have 9 billion people from 7 billion this year. As many experts says, increase in population will put pressure on scarce resources, environment damage, unemployment and so on. The report says that income will increase and this could lead to more consumption and stresses on finding better methods to produce as at present 7-8 pounds of grains are required for 1 pound of meat and 3-4 pounds for 1 pound cheese or eggs. This may be an indication to have vegetarian food instead of meat products but I do not know whether a person's needs are matched with equal quantity of either grains or meat.

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