Explosion, fire, and gas leak: which situations are considered industrial accidents?
In Uzbekistan, criteria for classifying accidents and incidents occurring at hazardous facilities in the chemical, petrochemical, and oil and gas refining industries are being established. The draft of the new methodological recommendations provides for a procedure to evaluate explosions, fires, leaks of hazardous substances, equipment failures, and other occurrences as either an accident or an incident.
Explosion, fire, and gas leak: which situations are considered industrial accidents?
A draft of methodological recommendations has been prepared for classifying accidents and incidents occurring at hazardous production facilities in the chemical, petrochemical, and oil and gas processing industries.
The main task of the document is to establish criteria for distinguishing between accidents and incidents, as well as to align the terms and requirements in current regulatory and technical documents with the legislation.
The draft is intended to apply to hazardous production facilities in the chemical, petrochemical, oil, and gas processing industries, as well as to enterprises and organizations in other industrial sectors operating explosive, fire-hazardous, and harmful chemical facilities.
Based on current legislation, the document defines an accident as the destruction of structures or technical devices used at hazardous production facilities, an uncontrollable explosion, or the release of hazardous substances.
An incident, on the other hand, refers to the failure or damage of a technical device, deviation from the technological process regime, as well as violation of the requirements of legislation and regulatory-technical documents in the field of industrial safety.
In the chemical, petrochemical, and oil and gas processing industries, explosions, fires, releases of hazardous substances, as well as the destruction of structures, technical devices, or their elements are classified as accidents.
According to the draft, the ignition and explosion of a dust-gas-air mixture is classified as an accident. Such a situation can occur in a technological system, a production building, or an open area.
An explosion of the reaction medium inside an apparatus or technological system as a result of deviation of technological process parameters from the established norms is also considered an accident.
In addition, cases of uncontrolled combustion associated with the spillage of fire- and explosion-hazardous substances, causing material damage or harm to human life and health, public interests, and the environment, are also included in this category.
The release or leakage of chemically hazardous, explosive, and flammable substances can also be assessed as an accident.
Furthermore, the complete or partial destruction of technological equipment and pipelines, buildings, and structures, not associated with an explosion or fire, is also being included in the classification of accidents.