Pollution
Humain
Environnement
Economique

At 11:30 am., an explosion followed by a fire destroyed a chemical plant employing 18 people and specialising in the manufacture of paint products. The company had received an order for a recipe containing a little more of one additive than in the usual manufacture. The plant’s managers, all working on site for 9 months at most and with no specific understanding of polymerisation, calculated the quantities of raw materials to be introduced in order to manufacture the required load in the 5.7 m3 reactor. But, excess materials of approximately 12 % compared to the usual load caused the energy released during the reaction to double, exceeding the cooling capacity of the double-walled reactor’s condenser and causing a runaway reaction. The pressure in the reactor increased rapidly until a manhole ruptured; solvent vapours (n-butyl acrylate in a toluene and cyclohexane mixture) then escaped into the building forming a flammable cloud. This cloud came into contact with an ignition source, causing an explosion (VCE) which destroyed the plant and damaged buildings outside of the site (2 churches and one house destroyed and broken windows in a 530 m radius). Although most of the staff had been able to leave the premises before the explosion, one employee was seriously burned and died 5 days later. 14 other employees were injured, including 4 critically injured. Two people who were driving by the plant in their car at the time of the explosion received minor injuries. Residents living close to the plant were asked to stay in their homes for several hours given the thick smoke released by the explosion. Various fires were put out the next day. Despite building makeshift dikes to recover the fire extinguishing water, some of it polluted the nearby HUNTING stream then the CATAWBA river: over 1,100 dead fish were recovered. The enquiry conducted by the Chemical Safety Board (US CSB) showed that the reactor was not equipped to prevent, detect and attenuate runaway reactions, and that basic safety management principles were not implemented on the site (no risk analysis, poorly documented process safety information, no change management, unsuitable manhole bolting practices, no technician and manager training, no preventive maintenance, inadequate emergency plans and no evacuation drills, and lack of any organisation in terms of process safety, etc.).