The OPPAU EXPLOSION DISASTER

 Background
The Oppau factory was a chemical production facility constructed by the leading German chemical
company BASF in the time period shortly before the First World War. The plant began producing
ammonium sulfate in 1911, but during World War I when Germany was unable to obtain the
necessary sulfur, it began to produce ammonium nitrate as well. To ease their work, small charges
of dynamite were used to loosen the mixture. Ammonia could be produced without overseas resources,
using the Haber process. It was the first facility of its kind anywhere in the world.

 Explosions
The Oppau explosion occurred on September 21, 1921, when a tower silo storing 4,500 tonnes of a
mixture of ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate fertilizer exploded at a BASF plant in Oppau, now
part of Ludwigshafen, Germany, killing 500–600 people and injuring about 2,000 more.

 Damages
The official human casualty reported included 561 deaths, 1,952 injured and 7,500 people left homeless.
Among the victims include passengers from three worker trains arriving on site for change of shift. Several
children on their way to school were injured, boats on the Rhine river sustained damage with numerous
sailors also injured. Eye injury was observed in several cases. Around 80% of the buildings in Oppau were
destroyed. Substantial damage was also reported in Ludwigschafen and Mannheim. Massive glass debris
on the roads of Heidelberg (30 km from Oppau), interrupted traffic in the city. According to an article in
the New York Times dated 29 January 1922, the material damage was assessed at 321,000,000 marks.

Destruction in the neighborhood of the exploded silo

 Causes of the Incident

The Oppau explosion disaster is different from most other explosion disasters since it was not the result
of an uncontrolled fire. The procedures leading to the disaster had actually been applied at the same
facility thousands of times prior to the disaster. Ammonium sulfate nitrate is a mixture of 2 salts:
ammonium nitrate (explosive) and ammonium sulfate (inert).

The explosiveness of the mixed salt is mainly determined by the ratio of these 2 salts.The influence of the
mixed salt composition on the sensitivity to detonation impact had been thoroughly investigated before
the accident as it was common practice to use small explosive charges (Perastralit cartridges) to loosen
the salt which had solidified during storage in the silo. About 20000 blasting operations were carried out
without any notable incident. Experiments conducted after the accident revealed that several physical
parameters (particle size, density, water content, homogeneity of crystal structure) also had an
influence.The introduction of a new drying process for ammonium sulfate nitrate (spray process,
“Spritzverfahren”) caused changes in all these parameters resulting in a salt with increased explosiveness.
In addition a dust-like fine fraction with increased ammonium nitrate content was formed which
accumulated at the edge of the silo.It can be assumed that on the day of the accident at least one of the
explosions for loosening the caked saltwas carried out in the area of the fine fraction, thus initiating a
detonation of this fine fraction and causing the detonation of further fractions with approximately
“normal” nitrate content.

Above points can be summarized as:

a) Contributing Causes
 Introduction of the spray process at the beginning of 1921 .
 Accumulation of a fine fraction with AN content > 55 %. This fine fraction is sensitive to
detonation impact from Perastralit cartridges.
 The accumulation of the fine fraction is not noticed since it is located at the edge of the silo and
since the main fraction has the required AN/AS ratio.
 The physical parameters of the main fraction have changed, causing an increased sensitivity to a
strong detonation impact.
 The blasting operation on 21.09.1921 for loosening the solidified salt was carried out at least
partially in the area of the fine fraction thus initiating a powerful detonation .

b) Immediate Causes
 The detonation of the fine fraction acts as booster for further ASN with correct AN/AS ratio, which
due to changed physical parameters is able to explode.
 During firing, this mixture enriched in ammonium nitrate could explode causing the adjoining
50/50 mixture to detonate.

 Lesson Learnt:
The use of explosives to loosen solidified salt is forbidden since the 1921 explosion. Since it is possible
today to prevent caking by treatment with anti-caking additives, there is no need for further measures to
improve the handling of the fertilizer.
The following lessons which can be learned from the accident in 1921, are basic rules of process safety
now for many years, but should be recalled on this occasion :
 In particular the influence of the process change upon the safety characteristics of the handled
materials must be determined.
 If a process has an extremely high hazard potential, it must be impossible that one single fault (e.g.
a deviation from the correct chemical composition of ASN) can activate this hazard potential.

TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FACTORY FIRE

 Background
The Triangle factory, owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, was located in the top three floors of
the Asch Building, on the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place, in Manhattan.The Triangle
Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911 , was the deadliest industrial disaster in US
history.

 Fatalities
The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers – 123 women and 23 men who died from the fire,
smoke inhalation, or falling or jumping to their deaths. Most of the victims were
recent Italian and Jewish immigrant women aged 14 to 23; of the victims whose ages are known, the
oldest victim was 43-year-old Providenza Panno, and the youngest were 14-year-olds Kate Leone and
"Sara" Rosaria Maltese.

 Explosion
As the workday was ending on the afternoon of Saturday, March 25, 1911, a fire flared up at approximately
4:40 pm in a scrap bin under one of the cutter's tables at the northeast corner of the eighth floor. The first
fire alarm was sent at 4:45 pm by a passerby on Washington Place who saw smoke coming from the eighth
floor.

Because the owners had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits – a then-common practice to prevent
workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft – many of the workers who could not escape
from the burning building jumped from the high windows.
 Causes of Incident
a) Contributing Causes
 The Fire Marshal concluded that the likely cause of the fire was the disposal of an unextinguished
match or cigarette butt in the scrap bin, which held two months' worth of accumulated cuttings by
the time of the fire.
 Beneath the table in the wooden bin were hundreds of pounds of scraps which were left over from
the several thousand shirtwaists that had been cut at that table.
 The scraps piled up from the last time the bin was emptied, coupled with the hanging fabrics that
surrounded it, the steel trim was the only thing that was not highly flammable. Although smoking
was banned in the factory, cutters were known to sneak cigarettes, exhaling the smoke through
their lapels to avoid detection.
 A New York Times article suggested that the fire may have been started by the engines running the
sewing machines.

b) Immediate Causes
 A bookkeeper on the eighth floor was able to warn employees on the tenth floor via telephone,
but there was no audible alarm and no way to contact staff on the ninth floor. According to a
survivor , the first warning of the fire on the ninth floor arrived at the same time as the fire itself.
 Although the floor had a number of exits, including two freight elevators, a fire escape, and
stairways down to Greene Street and Washington Place, flames prevented workers from
descending the Greene Street stairway, and the door to the Washington Place stairway was locked
to prevent theft by the workers; the locked doors allowed managers to check the women's purses.
 The foreman who held the stairway door key had already escaped by another route.

 Lesson Learnt
 The idea of locking the employees must be dropped in any case .
 Proper communication of emergency situation using alarms , sirens , telephones ,etc. must be
made mandatory.
 Emergency exits should always be opened and not locked at any times.
 In case of fire wind tunnel system should be installed
 THE KADER TOY FACTORY FIRE
 Background
The Kader facility, which manufactured stuffed toys and plastic dolls primarily intended for export to the
United States and other developed countries. On May 10, 1993, a major fire at the Kader Industrial
(Thailand) Co. Ltd. factory killed 188 workers.

This disaster stands as the world’s worst accidental loss-of-life fire in an industrial building in recent history,
a distinction held for 82 years by the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. Despite the years between these two
disasters, they share striking similarities that the Kader fire may help tighten building codes and safety
regulations, but they fear that lasting progress is still far off as employers flout rules and governments
allow economic growth to take priority over worker safety. Each building at the plant was equipped with
a fire alarm system ,portable extinguishers and hose stations were installed on outside walls and in the
stairwells of each building.

 Causes of Incident
a) Contributing Causes
 This fire was attributed to the ignition of polyester fabric used in the manufacture of dolls in a
spinning machine. May 10, was a normal workday at the Kader facility. A
 t approximately 4:00 p.m., as the end of the day shift approached, someone discovered a small fire
on the first floor near the south end of Building One. This portion of the building was used to
package and store the finished products, so it contained a considerable fuel load .

b) Immediate Causes
 Each building at the facility had a fuel load composed of fabric, plastics and materials used for
stuffing, as well as other normal workplace materials.
 Despite the smoke, security guards reportedly told some workers to stay at their stations because
it was a small fire that would soon be under control.
 The fire spread rapidly throughout Building One, and the upper floors soon became untenable. The
blaze blocked the stairwell at the south end of the building, so most of the workers rushed to the
north stairwell. This meant that approximately 1,100 people were trying to leave the third and
fourth floors through a single stairwell.
 Survivors reported that the fire alarm never sounded in Building One, but many workers grew
concerned when they saw smoke on the upper floors.
 None of the structural steel in the building was fireproofed. None of the buildings had automatic
sprinklers
  Lesson Learnt

 Moving into a global economy implies that products are manufactured at one location and used at
other locations throughout the world.
 Installation of Low Temperatures Alarms should be perfect and have maximum accuracy of
detection.
 Desire for competitiveness in this new market should not lead to compromise in fundamental
industrial fire safety provisions. There is a moral obligation to provide workers with an adequate
level of fire protection, no matter where they are located.

SAN JUANICO LPG DISASTER

 Background
The San Juanico disaster was an industrial disaster caused by a massive series of explosions at a liquid
petroleum gas (LPG) tank farm in San Juanico, Mexico on 19 November 1984.

The incident took place at a storage and distribution facility (a "terminal") for liquified petroleum gas (LPG)
belonging to the multi-state enterprise, Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX). The facility consisted of 54 LPG
storage tanks; 6 large spherical tanks (four holding 1,600 m3 and two holding 2,400 m3) and 48 smaller
horizontal bullet shaped tanks of various sizes. All together the tanks contained 11,000 m3 of a
propane/butane mixture at the time of the accident.
  Damages
The town of San Juan Ixhuatepec surrounded the facility and consisted of 40,000 residents, with an
additional 61,000 more living in the hills. The explosions demolished houses and propelled twisted metal
fragments (some measuring 30 tons) over distances ranging from a few meters to up to 1200 m. Much of
the town was destroyed by the explosions and ensuing fire, with the current statistics indicating 500 to
600 deaths, and 5,000–7,000 severe injuries. Radiant heat generated by the inferno incinerated most
corpses to ashes, with only 2% of the recovered remains left in recognizable condition.

 Explosion
The disaster was initiated by a gas leak on the site , which caused a plume of LPG to concentrate at ground
level for 10 minutes. At 5:40 a.m., the cloud reached the flare and ignited, resulting in a vapor cloud
explosion that severely damaged the tank farm and resulted in a massive conflagration fed by the
LPG leaking from newly damaged tanks. Just four minutes later, at 5:44 a.m., the first tank underwent
a BLEVE (Boiling Liquid/Expanding Vapor Explosion). Over the next hour, 12 separate BLEVE explosions
were recorded. The fire and smaller explosions continued until 10 a.m. the next morning. It is believed
that the escalation was caused by an ineffective gas detection system.

 Causes of Incident
a) Contributing Cause :
The disaster was initiated by a gas leak which was likely caused by a pipe rupture during transfer
operations. It is believed that the escalation was caused by an ineffective gas detection system.

b) Immediate Causes :

All together the tanks contained 11,000 m3 of a propane/butane mixture at the time of the accident.So,
the explosions and fire continued till all the fuel was consumed , and also there is no safety valve installed
for cut down of LPG flow.
 Lesson Learnt

 Effective gas detection system should be installed and proper monitoring must be done to check
whether they are working properly or not .
 Fuel Storage Tanks must be installed away from each other , so in case of any accident. Fire can be
brought under control .
 LPG special extinguishers should be there on plant that were not present at that time on the plant.

REFERENCES:

 Hystory of both rhine villages Oppau and Edigheim / Karl Otto Braun – Ludwigschafen : Town
administration Ludwigschafen/Rhine, 1953 – ch. 33.

 Casey Cananaugh Grant. "Ch. 39 / Case Study: The Kader Toy Factory Fire": 3-4. Archived from the
original on December 11, 2011.

 https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/triangle-shirtwaist-fire

 Arturson, G. (April 1987). "The tragedy of San Juanico--the most severe LPG disaster in
history". Burns Incl Therm Inj. 13 (2): 87–102. PMID 3580941.

 "The tragedy of San Juanico--the most severe LPG disaster in history.", Arturson, G. Burns Incl
Therm Inj. 1987 Apr;13(2):87-102. PMID 3580941

 Casey Cananaugh Grant. "Ch. 39 / Case Study: The Kader Toy Factory Fire": 3-4. Archived From The
Original On December 11, 2011.