Hello, Fellow Engineer.
Chemical disasters are not random events. They result from specific decisions — or failures to decide — that made catastrophe inevitable.
PRESSURE & CONTAINMENT FAILURES
- Texas City (2005): Raffinate splitter tower overfilled; pressure relief vented to atmosphere — a design flagged but never fixed.
- Piper Alpha, North Sea (1988): Condensate pump restarted during maintenance. Permit-to-work system breakdown. 167 killed.
RUNAWAY REACTIONS
- Bhopal (1984): Water entered a methyl isocyanate tank, triggering an exothermic runaway. Multiple safety systems were offline.
- T2 Laboratories, USA (2007): Synthesis lost coolant; reactor exploded. 4 killed.
TOXIC RELEASE WITHOUT CONTAINMENT
- Seveso (1976): A stuck pressure valve released dioxin. The plant was shut down for the weekend — no monitoring in place.
KEY ENGINEERING LESSONS
- Design for failure — assume every component will fail eventually.
- Layer of protection analysis (LOPA) — never rely on a single safety system.
- Management of change (MOC) — any process or equipment change must be formally assessed.
- HAZOP — regular, systematic reviews of every process.
- Near-miss culture — report and investigate near misses before they become incidents.
“Process safety is not just about equipment. It is about building organisations where the person on the floor feels empowered to stop an operation when something does not feel right.”
— Venkatesha Perumal (Ramven) | ramven.com
