Dust Explosion and Inferno at Sugar Plant

In another stunning video, the US Chemical Safety Board describes the sequence of events that led to a catastrophic incident at Imperial Sugar in Georgia, USA in February 2008.

The dust explosion and subsequent fire killed 14 people and injured many more. The facility was virtually destroyed.

Imperial Sugar failed to understand and address the issues at their site, with spillages of sugar and airborne sugar dust becoming the norm at this facility. Dust control systems were poorly designed and in a bad state of repair. Staff were not trained to identify and deal with the issues and emergency preparedness was poor.

Eventually, a plant modification was made with catastrophic effects, leading to dust explosion, fire and multiple fatalities.

Although the exact sequence of events was specific to this incident, the common themes were all present. As manufacturers we have the following obligations:

• Understand our hazards
• Manage those hazards
• Ensure effective housekeeping
• Have well trained personnel
• Ensure full emergency preparedness
• Have effective management of change procedures
• Measure and review HSE (and process safety) performance using leading and lagging indicators

If anyone claims that it is too expensive to implement the above list, just compare that cost with the human and financial cost of an incident leading to 14 fatalities and a destroyed plant.