Today, Industrial disasters are on the rise across India, both in terms of their magnitude and their frequency. Over the past decade, the number of industrial disasters has increased significantly. In India, the increasing use of hazardous substances by industrial units with safety inadequacies has raised serious concern over industrial plants, safety of workers and community. Effective disaster management can go a long way in mitigating the damage and risk, thereby increasing plant safety. Disaster management in chemical process plant is an integral and essential part of loss prevention system. Therefore, an effective Disaster Management Plan (DMP) that addresses the accidents is an urgent need for all hazardous industries.
Safety initiatives at National level to address chemical (industrial) risk
India is amongst those few countries of the world, which have preserved the right to live in a clean and wholesome environment as a fundamental right. The Factories Act was enacted in 1948, for ensuring safety, health and welfare at the workplace. However Chemical Industrial Disaster Management (CIDM) received greater emphasis the world over only after the Bhopal disaster in 1984. Recognizing the need to mainstream environmental and chemical (industrial) concerns in all developmental activities, a separate ministry—the MoEF (Ministry of Environment & Forests) was created in 1985, and was declared as the nodal ministry for the management of chemical (industrial) disasters.
Later, an umbrella Act, the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, (EP Act) was enacted, which also deals with chemical management & safety. Under this EP Act, two rules have been notified for ensuring chemical safety:
(a) Manufacture, Storage & Import of Hazardous Chemicals Rules 1989 (MSIHC), amended in 1994 & 2000
(b) Chemical Accidents (Emergency, Planning, Preparedness and Response) Rules, 1996 (CAEPPR Rules).
Safety initiatives at the organizational level to address industrial risk
In order to prepare for industrial accidents, industries should develop emergency / disaster management plan to reduce the impact of an industrial accident on communities and the environment. Disaster management is a continuous and combined process of planning, organizing, co-ordinating and implementing all necessary measures for the prevention of loss and threat of any disaster that includes mitigation or reduction of risk, capacity building, prompt response, severity or magnitude assessment, consequence analysis, evaluation rescue, relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction. It is the sum total of efforts and activities, steps and measures that specify preparedness and mitigation that can be taken up before, during and after a disaster with the purpose of avoiding and minimizing the resultant consequences. An effective Disaster Management Plan (DMP) shall include:
Pre-disaster Phase (Before a disaster): Activities have taken to reduce human and property losses caused by a potential hazard that includes mitigation and preparedness activities.
Disaster Phase (During a disaster): Initiatives are taken to ensure that the needs and provisions of victims are met, and their suffering minimized that includes emergency response activities.
Post- Disaster Phase (After a disaster): Initiatives taken in response to a disaster with the purpose of achieving early recovery and rehabilitation of the affected communities, immediately after a disaster strikes.
The community is the most vulnerable entity should keep notice of the following points –
(a) Should follow the safety precautions, recommended by chemical units, Dist. Admin and NGOs and provide support in volunteer activities.
(b) Form Citizens Task Force or similar groups, after getting trained in first aid, search & rescue, to deal emergency, including early warning dissemination in the vicinity by local communication means
(c) Train other members back at home to deal with disaster situations.
(d) Report unsafe observations (like chemical spillage, leakage, fire incident, etc) to District/ Local Crisis Group members/ NGOs/ RWAs or Police, in the vicinity.
Disaster management program shall include:
A good communication system
Training and education on understanding the emergency procedures
Regular follow up and communication between government agencies and industries and ensure the availability of emergency equipment
It should be noted that the hazards in chemical industries are generally identified during the design stage by various methods for hazard identification, such as safety review, ‘checklist analysis’, ‘what-if analysis’, ‘fault tree analysis’ and the commonly-used technique of ‘Hazard and Operability studies (HAZOP)’. Based on the risk analysis of the identified hazards and considering design basis accidents, it’s necessary to take all measures to prevent the incidence of these accidents.
During hazard identification, due consideration should be given to postulated initiating events and the identified hazards should be mitigated through the adoption of safer engineering practices, improved safety devices and designing a fail-proof system. In the safety-based concept, possible design and operational events (both for normal and abnormal conditions) are first postulated. The engineering revision is then carried out to ensure that the structural system is reliable and is competent to withstand or mitigate the consequences of these postulated conditions, and is thereby capable of preventing disaster.
In spite of the advances made in knowledge and technology, failure-free design and devices have remained difficult to be traced out. Even a well designed and inherently safe chemical facility must prepare to control potentially hazardous events that are caused by human or mechanical failure, or technical failures.
An effective disaster risk management plan that integrates the potential chemical/industrial hazards with the integrated emergency plan with respect to process hazards is an urgent need. It is very important to understand the fundamentals of disaster and disaster risk management, in order to address the complex issue of potential accidents. All relevant authorities at the local, regional and national level should be fully prepared and have the proper equipment and training in place to deal with any accident scenario.
Preparedness and response during and after the Chemical (Industrial) Accidents
Do not panic, evacuate calmly and quickly perpendicular to wind direction through the designated escape route
Keep a wet handkerchief or piece of cloth on face during evacuation
Keep the sick, elderly, weak, handicapped and other people who are unable to evacuate inside house and close all the doors and windows tightly.
Do not consume the uncovered food/ water etc open to the air, drink only from bottle
Change into fresh clothing after reaching safe place/ shelter, and wash hands properly
Inform Fire & Emergency Services, Police and medical services from safe location by calling 101, 100 and 108 respectively.
Listen to PA (Public Addressal) System of the plant/ factory, local radio/ TV channels for advice from district administration/fire/health/police and other concerned authorities
Provide correct and accurate information to government official.
Inform others on occurrence of event at public gathering places (like school, shopping centre, theatre etc.).
Don’t pay attention to the rumours and don’t spread rumours.
Article by Dr.Yashoda Tammineni,
MSc, Ph.D.
HSE, HOD at NIFS
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