Accidents in other industries

An explosion in a Canadian coal mine in 1992 killed 27 people and led to the bankruptcy of the parent company. There was an explosion of methane, which set off a coal dust explosion. The source of ignition was probably sparks formed by mining machinery striking rock. Various faults were detected that led to such an incident. There were other hazards not directly connected with the explosion. Thus falls of roof were common as intersecting fault lines were ignored. Many marine accidents are process accidents, similar to many that have occurred, or could occur, in chemical plants. On ships, as on land, there is a reported readiness to blame human error—poor maintenance, watch-keepers falling asleep, errors in navigation—instead of looking for underlying causes such as poor training or supervision, error-prone designs, lack of protective features, overlong hours of work, and so on. The importance of testing equipment is highlighted in this chapter and real-life scenarios are suggested. Another aspect of testing or normal work procedure is to check whether the load is not too close to the strength of the equipment as this may lead to failures during prolonged usage. Many of the causes of accidents in the nineteenth century are familiar, but others were due to ignorance of the properties of the materials handled, such as cast and wrought iron, clay (in dams), coal and coal dust, methane (in mines), town gas, and drinking water.