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Tema Factory Explosion: Cause Identified

By Daily Guide
General News The scene of the explosion showing the tools of the deceased
AUG 23, 2017 LISTEN
The scene of the explosion showing the tools of the deceased


THE TEMA Metropolitan Director of the Factories Inspectorate Department, Stephen Ankama-Lomotey, has identified the main cause of last Friday's explosion at Delta Agro Limited which claimed the lives of two welders and injured one in the soap manufacturing company. He has attributed the explosion to managerial failure.

The affected persons had been contracted by the company to weld a fuel tank in the factory located at the industrial enclave of Tema in the Greater Accra Region when the explosion occurred.

“It was some form of maintenance work at their boiler house and there is an oil feed to the boiler. They tried to switch on the boiler but it was not switching and so they had to check the fuel and it was there that they realised that the fuel flow was not adequate as they wanted.

“So they had to open the tank and realised there was a lot of sludge choked so the next thing was to cut a little bit down there and dislodge the sludge,” he stated.

He expressed disappointment that the company did not risk assess the work to put safety measures in place before commencing the work, which led to explosion.

According to him, “Now, if you want to do such a job, we call that job hot work. So hot work means you must risk asses the work. Look at the hazard associated with it. This one is fire risk so look at the hazard associated with it, who will be affected and what sort of evaluation you have to make and then you put what we call safe system of work in place and the methodology you want to use so that the work will be done safely.

“The normal way of doing such work is to suspend the work and purge the container of every residual oil, wait for it to dry and when there is no oil in it then you can do your cutting.”

He further revealed that during the cutting the lid of the tank got removed and threw the one cutting it away, leading to his instant death.

“When you start cutting, there will be heat and some pressure piling but someone was put on top of the tank holding fire extinguisher so that when there was fire he would use the extinguisher. This means they envisaged fire but the industrial fire is not what normally happens at homes; it will be inflamed. The one welding died straight away and the one on top also jumped down and sustained some injuries. But we just heard that apart from the first one who died, another person also died.”

Dr. Lomotey said that his outfit was still investigating the incident and come out with a report to educate others to prevent similar future explosion.

He noted that until the Occupational and Safety Bill is passed into law the country will continue to record several explosions and fires at work places.

According to him, the Occupational and Safety Bill had been sitting in parliament since 2010 without any justification.

From Vincent Kubi, Tema

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