Director fined for accident that claimed 4 lives
Posted: 08 December 2011 1532 hrs
SINGAPORE: A director of a cleaning company, Tay Kah Heng, was fined S$50,000 for not acquiring a correct understanding of materials to be used in a chemical cleaning process.
The company, Chemic Industries, was also fined S$100,000 for contravening provisions under the Workplace Safety and Health Act for the accident in 2009 which claimed four lives and injured one other worker.
In addition, the company was also fined an additional S$4,000 because one of the deceased workers did not have a valid work permit. The work permit was for him to work as a construction worker for another company.
Thirty minutes after the workers started used nitric acid to clean two heat exchangers, a white substances gushed out and brown fumes were released.
The two exchangers had gone through an earlier round of water cleaning with another contractor, Alfa Laval Singapore, who provided a Material Safety Data Sheet to indicate that strong reactions may occur when residual solution comes into contact with oxidising agents such as nitric acid.
The Data Sheet had also required workers to wear protective gear during the chemical cleaning process.
The five workers who came into contact with the white substance were sent to hospital and four of them succumbed to their injuries and died.
One suffered chemical burns.
The Manpower Ministry's investigation revealed that there was a chemical reaction between nitric acid used and the residual polymer inside the heat exchangers.
It said it was Tay's responsibility as director to ensure that an appropriate cleaning method was used in the process.
- CNA/ck
