【Focus Interview】Without eliminating hidden dangers, safety cannot be ensured!

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If you have time, take a look at the Focus Interview on June 23rd. After reading this, I wonder what everyone’s thoughts are – how many other hidden dangers exist around us? http://tv.cntv.cn/video/C10326/481ffcc3a3b54097b138aacd0c781a26?from=message&isappinstalled=0 June 23, 2016 [China Central Television] Focus Interview: **Chemicals are flammable, explosive, toxic, and harmful; accidents involving them can often lead to serious consequences such as fires, explosions, and gas leaks. However, safety risks exist at every stage of its production, storage, and disposal, which is why it is an industry prone to serious and major safety accidents. Recently, an inspection team from the Work Safety Supervision Bureau came to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River to inspect such chemical enterprises. The reason for choosing to inspect companies along the Yangtze River is that in the event of an accident, not only could there be fires, explosions, and toxic gas leaks, but the water quality in the lower reaches of the river would also be contaminated, leading to environmental pollution and even greater casualties. The results of this inspection show that the situation of some companies is concerning. The inspection team first visited Hubei Wuhan Kaishun Chemical Technology Co., Ltd. The high liquid level safety alarm for spherical tanks triggers an alert automatically when the liquid level of the chemicals in the tank exceeds the safe level. This serves to remind the workers not to continue pouring in more, so as to prevent danger from occurring due to chemicals spilling over the tank; it functions like a radar in a car. According to the regulations, the high liquid level alarm should remain in operation at all times, but this company disabled the alarm. The employees of this company were aware of the consequences, but since the alarm kept sounding and was annoying, they turned it off. The interlock device at the bottom of the spherical tank is another important mechanism for ensuring its safety; its function is to quickly close the valves at the bottom of the tank in emergency situations, thereby preventing chemicals from leaking out and stopping the expansion of any accidents. It functions similarly to the brake pads in a car. Yet this company opened the interlocks on units that should have been shut down. It would have been acceptable if these spherical tanks hadn’t been put into use at all; however, in reality, all of them were operating. The potential hazards identified in this enterprise previously all constitute major problems related to equipment and facilities. And once the first line of defense in the form of equipment and facilities fails, there is still the second line of defense in the form of the control room, where personnel are on duty. So, what is the situation like in the control room of this company? According to the regulations, the control room should be monitored around the clock by dedicated personnel, with at least two people on duty to prevent a situation where no one is monitoring the area in case one of them has to leave. In reality, however, only one person is on duty for this position. Moreover, they often work in other positions, and not only that, they can’t tell when it’s necessary to call the police. Disabling the alarm systems is equivalent to losing one’s hearing; lifting the interlock mechanisms is like losing control over one’s body. And whether there are dedicated personnel in the control room who know how to interpret the alarms or not is equivalent to being blind. The safety conditions in such companies are truly concerning. The person in charge of safety at the company said that safety is more important than anything else. They claim that safety is of utmost importance, but in practice they ignore it. Ultimately, this all stems from a lack of safety awareness, and there have been many tragedies caused by such a lack of awareness. The chemical industry is a highly hazardous sector; in the event of serious accidents, the consequences can be severe, resulting not only in substantial financial losses but also in social panic and affecting social stability. At around 7:30 on July 16, 2015, a 1,000-cubic-meter liquefied hydrocarbon sphere tank at Shandong Shida Technology Petrochemical Co., Ltd. in Rizhao, Shandong Province, experienced a leak and caught fire. Although no serious casualties were reported, the impact of the accident was enormous: 7 fire trucks were destroyed, and the doors and windows of buildings within a 200-meter radius of the explosion site were all shattered. At around 18:55 on April 6, 2015, an explosion occurred in the xylene production facility of Tenglong Aromatics (Zhangzhou) Co., Ltd. in the Gulei Development Zone of Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province. The accident resulted in 6 injuries and direct economic losses of 94.57 million yuan. At around 12:35 on June 9, 2014, an explosion occurred in Tank No. 2 for acidic water at the sulfur recovery unit of the Yangzi Petrochemical Refinery in Nanjing, Jiangsu. Thick black smoke billowed from the site, visible even several kilometers away. Fortunately, there were no casualties, and the contamination of the water source was brought under control in a timely manner. An investigation afterward found that the accident was caused by improper human operation. These accidents were all ultimately classified as liability accidents related to work safety, with the potential hazards for such accidents often existing long before they occurred. The main factors contributing to accidents in the chemical industry can be categorized into insufficient investment in equipment and facilities, low professional competence of personnel, and deficiencies in management systems; ultimately, however, all these issues stem from a weak safety awareness. Litian Petrochemical Terminal Co., Ltd. in Jiangsu Province is a provincial-owned enterprise; it is an old factory with 13 years of history. The spherical tank area is already the most dangerous part of chemical plants, and with the aging of the equipment there, the spherical tanks become even more hazardous. Logically, companies should pay more attention to this weak point, but the situation here is not optimistic. According to the regulations set by the Work Safety Administration, spherical tanks must be sealed with an inert gas – nitrogen – in order to prevent flammable and explosive substances from coming into contact with air, thus avoiding fires and explosions in the event of an ignition source. However, nitrogen was not used in this case. The company was aware of the dangers that could arise from not using nitrogen for sealing, as well as the severity of those dangers, but it took them lightly because no accidents had occurred in the past. During this inspection, the team sampled four companies in Hubei and Jiangsu provinces. The systems for management, hardware facilities, and the quality of personnel at these four companies varied greatly, which is a common issue throughout the petrochemical industry. We are currently in the 15th National Safety Production Month, and this year’s theme for the month is: Strengthening the concept of safe development and improving the safety awareness of all citizens. For the chemical industry, safety is of the utmost importance; it is the foundation upon which a company can thrive. To prevent serious and catastrophic accidents, it is not enough to merely say that \"safety is of utmost importance\" or that \"safety comes first\"; it is necessary to address weaknesses in various aspects such as management systems, hardware facilities, and the competence of personnel, ensuring that there are no gaps in safety coverage – no room for negligence or carelessness.