Averting catastrophe
Faisal I Khan and SA Abbasi showcase the usefulness of MAXCRED and
DOMIFFECT for their ability to forecast industrial accidents, based on the
unfortunate incident at the refinery of HPCL, at Vishakapatnam in India
The world's most destructive
industrial accident of the
current decade, in terms of
human lives lost and damage to
property (over $15 million),
occurred at the petroleum
refinery of Hindustan Petroleum
Corporation Limited (HPCL) at
Vishakhapatnam, India, on
September 14, 1997. In this paper
we have used two computerautomated
tools developed by us,
MAXCRED and DOMIFFECT, to
determine their ability to forecast
the details of the incident. When
the situation at Vishakhapatnam,
prior to the accident, was studied
with MAXCRED for potential
accidents and their likely
consequences, the tool was able
to generate a scenario which
forecasts the incident quite
closely.We then used MAXCRED
and DOMIFFECT to tell us what
else might have occurred.
The prognosis is quite scary.
The computer tools reveal a few
lucky breaks: had the situation and
the events conspired a little more
treacherously, the HPCL disaster
would have been much larger in
magnitude. Indeed, the incident
could have resulted in a death toll
of the magnitude of the Bhopal
Gas Tragedy, with additional
massive damage to property.
Among the various chemicals
handled in the refinery, LPG is the
most common, most hazardous
(highly flammable) and handled in
huge quantities. Numerous
accidents involving LPG have been
reported, involving more than
1,000 injuries of varied intensity,
and several hundred deaths.
It can be seen that the storage
areas and transportation vehicles
for LPG are most vulnerable to
accidents. More than 10 accidents
out of the 45 accidents examined
have ended up in boiling-liquid
expanding-vapour-cloud
explosion (BLEVE) situations. The
rest have caused fires and other
types of explosions.
The consequences of BLEVE
have been found to be most severe
in the vicinity of the accident site.
A major disaster occurred in the
LPG storage and distribution centre in San
Juan
Ixhautepec in
Mexico City in
1984. An extensive
fire and a series of
violent explosions
resulted in the almost
complete destruction
of the storage facility.
Uncertainties still exist as
to the real cause of the
accident. It was widely
believed to be caused by an
outflow of LPG on account of a
pipe leak/rupture or through a
relief valve of an overfilled vessel.
There is strong evidence that the
LPG vapour cloud had formed prior
to the first explosion.
Approximately 1 min after ignition
of vapour cloud, one of the
heaviest explosions of the whole
sequence occurred. Unburned and
burning gas entered the nearby
residences and set fire to
everything. A blast wave from the
explosion also destroyed many
houses.More LPG cylinders
exploded during the next 68 min.
More than four BLEVEs were
registered. This accident resulted in
500 fatalities and left 7,000 people
injured. Six LPG storage spheres
and 48 cylinders were destroyed.
In order to prevent - or at least
reduce the frequency of such
accidents - a major effort must be
made towards raising the level of
....CONTD
