Organisational and human factors Archives - Page 16 of 32 - La référence du retour d'expérience sur accidents technologiques

Explosion followed by a fire in a dispersant unit

17/04/2003
FRANCE

An explosion followed by fire occurred at 3.20 am in a plant's lubricant additive manufacturing facility located in a harbour-based industrial zone. The unit, experiencing an operational shutdown for the last 3 days, appeared to be empty of all additives at[...]

Explosion in a pharmaceutical factory

01/04/2003
PAYS-BAS

At a chemical site producing melamine, an accidental explosion occurred during restart of an industrial furnace powered by both natural gas and the residual gas from other units. The filters clogged by residual gas were regularly cleaned, which necessitated installation[...]

Explosion in a blasting workshop of a dynamite factory

27/03/2003
FRANCE

A violent explosion, felt more than 10 km away, occurred in a dynamite boxing workshop at an explosives plant. This shop was transforming bulk gelatinous explosives into packaged cartridges. The dynamite manufactured at the time of the accident contained 1/3[...]

Safety disc failure

04/03/2003
FRANCE

At a chemical facility, a recently replaced graphite safety disc (nominal diam.: 250) calibrated at 3 bar broke on a 12-m³ reactor used to solubilize a Resol resin. This intermediate resinous agent, included in production activities for the hide tanning[...]

Water pollution

02/02/2003
FRANCE

On Sunday, 20 m³ of a chelated iron-EDDHAS complex polluted the BRENNE River following an operational incident in one of the workshops at a chemical plant manufacturing basic organic products. A closed-loop iron complex filtration phase started up at 5 am[...]

Orthocresol leakage

16/01/2003
PAYS-BAS

In a dockside warehouse of oil and petroleum products, a reservoir containing 1,600 m³ of ortho-cresol broke and a vapour cloud rose in the direction of the nearby Rotterdam metropolitan area. The reservoir collapsed on one of its sides and[...]

Release of a chlorine cloud in a chemical plant

12/01/2003
FRANCE

Inside a chemical plant, 2 kg of chlorine were released into the atmosphere from a liquid trap that initially contained 98% sulphuric acid. The facility's internal emergency plan was activated. Notified by the operator, the railway station, located 200 m away,[...]

Fire in an isomerisation unit and domino effect on the benzene unit in a refinery

27/12/2002
ITALIE

Fire broke out in an isomerization unit at a refinery; the unit was responsible for transforming pentanes and hexanes. The blaze also damaged the benzene saturation unit, which served to convert aromatics into saturated compounds. Mechanical deficiencies on a compressor[...]

1,200 t of cyclohexane leaks

17/12/2002
FRANCE

During efforts since the previous day to locate the source of a pressure drop on the cyclohexane supply line of an olone production facility, a leak of this substance was discovered at a chemical site. The substance, used in large[...]

Tray overflow during a transfer operation

13/12/2002
BELGIQUE

A ship was unloading its cargo into a tank located in a petroleum depot. The handling operations were being carried out normally for the transfer. Suddenly, a warning alarm signalled that the first tank was nearly full. As the operator[...]