An explosion at an aluminum factory in Qingyuan, Guangdong resulted in 4 deaths and 1 injury. Is there any safety hazard in the factory?

On April 3, 2022, an explosion occurred at an aluminum plant in Qingyuan City, Guangdong Province. A mushroom cloud several meters high rose from the explosion site, which indicated the seriousness of the accident. Yes, the accident resulted in the death of four workers and one injury to one at the scene. The casualties were heavy and heartbreaking. Judging from the live video released on the Internet before the incident, there are many loopholes in the factory's management of safety production, and of course there are bound to be safety hazards.

1. There is a problem with on-site management.

Let’s first look at how the explosion occurred. The temperature of aluminum is very high when it becomes liquid. When it encounters water after leaking into a cold pool, it will produce a chemical reaction and produce hydrogen, which is highly explosive. Judging from the on-site video before the incident published on the Internet, aluminum water had begun to leak from the on-site storage container into the cold water pool, but no one noticed the leak for 10 minutes. None of the on-site operators, on-site managers, and on-site safety inspectors discovered such a major safety hazard, which eventually led to the accident.

2. Explosion is a qualitative change when safety hazards accumulate to a certain extent.

Hain's Law tells us that for every serious accident, there must be 29 minor accidents, 300 near misses, and 1,000 accident hazards. That is to say, the occurrence of accidents will occur after the volume has accumulated to a certain amount. The qualitative changes that have occurred. It is conceivable that there are many safety hazards behind this serious explosion accident that will only occur after the accumulation of safety risks to a certain extent?

3. Problems occurred during the on-site safety inspection.

The factory is a special profile processing and manufacturing unit. In such a unit, professional on-site safety inspectors should be equipped to promptly discover on-site safety hazards and propose corrective measures. But it is very regrettable that we did not see the on-site safety inspection personnel in the video. We don’t know whether they were not equipped or were not managed properly.

The accident caused the death of 4 people and was considered a major accident. If the subsequent investigation shows that it was indeed caused by the company's inadequate safety management, then the company's managers may also be punished. I hope that the investigation team can find out the truth as soon as possible, and that the company can learn lessons and make amends!