Since 2016, 25% of accidents in ICPEs (classified facilities for environmental protection requiring authorisation or registration), impacting people and property, have been caused by multiple failures involving equipment faults or human interventions. Most initial post-accident verifications focus on the incriminated[...]
Every year, Bureau for analysis of industrial risks and pollution (BARPI) records in its technological accidents database ARIA between 800 and 1 100 events that have occurred at classified facilities for environmental protection. A look at the past three years[...]
VCM is a flammable and carcinogenic gas, used in liquefied and gaseous form to manufacture PVC by polymerisation in reactors. At the end of the reaction, the reactors are degassed to remove the unconverted VCM. The degassing circuit includes a[...]
Conveyor belts used to handle organic materials must meet standards defined by various French ministerial orders .These texts indicate that conveyor belts must comply with standard NF EN ISO 340 or standards NF EN 12881-1 and NF EN 12881-2 (self-extinguishing[...]
A fire broke out at 10:15 am in a warehouse subject to authorization (item 1510 of the nomenclature of the French classified installations) at an external storage of wooden pallets. Employees are evacuated prior to the arrival of firefighters. The[...]
Before 8:00 a.m. one morning, a leak occurred on a non-return valve at a refinery's flue-gas desulphurisation unit. At 8:13 a.m. a hydrogen sulphide (H2S – a flammable, toxic and odorous gas in very low concentrations) detection alarm with a threshold[...]
At 9:20 a.m., the temperature inside a 4000-l reactor used to manufacture an organomagnesium compound at a chemical plant abruptly rose. At 9:30 a.m., the employees in the shop began flooding the reaction medium with water. As a precaution, the internal emergency[...]
At around 3○a.m., a deep-seated fire broke out in an outdoor 50,000○m3 woodchip storage in a waste recycling facility (24○m high, located on the facility's property line). White smoke was emitted above the urban zone and the highway. Access to[...]
At around 9:00 p.m., phosgene and chlorobenzene began leaking inside the containment of a chlorinated chemicals plant. The leak was detected by analysers inside the containment. The analysers' control system automatically directed the air inside the bubble towards the caustic scrubber.[...]
A tank of diesel fuel at an oil terminal began leaking its contents at around midnight. The fuel had been unloaded from an oil tanker. A total of 100 l leaked out and formed a floating layer on the surface of[...]
