Lessons Learned from Industrial Chemical Accidents: A Case Study of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) Terminal, Jaipur, India

Abstract

Fire and explosion hazards in industrial storage units have gained a considerable attention in recent years. Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) storage terminal accident in Jaipur, India, is a recent example of Vapor Cloud Explosion (VCE) and fire accidents preceded by Buncefield (2005) and Puerto-Rico (2009). On 29th October 2009, a leak of gasoline occurred in the IOC storage terminal. Long delay of 80 minutes in ignition led to a huge vapor cloud covering an area of 180,000 m2 over the entire installation and subsequent ignition triggered strong VCE with intensity more than 200 kPa. Eleven people lost their lives, more than 150 people were injured and a property loss of approximately U.S. $60 million was reported. The Individual and Societal Risk has been quantified and found that risk does not lie in the unacceptable region, but in the As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP) region where substantial measures for a risk reduction were needed. The incident has left many safety issues behind which must be repeatedly addressed. It reveals that adequate safety measures were either underestimated or not accounted seriously. This article highlights the aftermaths of IOC incident and addresses challenges put forward by it. Furthermore, a comparative study is performed between such incidents to analyze the similarities and how they could have been avoided. Therefore, electronic-Incident Command System (e-ICS) based emergency response planning is an integral and essential part of the safety and loss prevention strategy and comprises of the actions taken to manage, control and mitigate the immediate effects of an incident.