Chemical plant blast kills worker in Yokohama Tuesday 08th April, 07:00 AM JST YOKOHAMA

One worker was killed and another was injured in a Monday morning blast at a chemical factory in Yokohama, police and firefighters said. Bare Frames are all that is left of a chemical factory building in Kanazawa Ward, Yokohama, after an explosion Monday morning. KYODO PHOTO The blast occurred at around 8:50 a.m. at one of the eight buildings at the factory of chemical maker Kanto Koatsu Kagaku Co. in Kanazawa Ward. The building that suffered the blast is used for conducting experiments.

At least two industrial workers were killed and seven others received burn wounds in an explosion at a chemical unit in the Tarapur MIDC early on Sunday.

Eight people, including three women, died and 64 were injured in a major fire in an industrial estate in Byculla on Monday afternoon. Only one of the injured is said be in a serious condition.

Two separate incidents of fire were reported in Pimpri-Chinchwad on Sunday afternoon.

The National Disaster Management Authority conducted an Industrial disaster drill at Indian Oil Corporation Limited (Assam Oil division's) at Digboi Refinery recently. The drill was conducted to test the preparedness of the civil administration concerned in the event of a major industrial disaster. The scenario envisaged for the disaster involved three mishaps: leakage of LPG at the LPG dispatch unit. Blast in hydrogen bullets in the refinery and leakage of chlorine due to catastrophic failure of toner, occurring almost simultaneously resulting in a large number of casualties. The District Administration, Civil Hospital, Civil Defence, State Fire Service, Police Department, Revenue Department, Indian Oil Corporation Limited (Assam Oil Divisions's) mutual aid partners such as Oil India Limited, Assam Gas Company Limited, North East Electric Power Corporation, Brahmaputra Valley Fertilisers Limited, Coal India Limited participated in the drill. NGOs like Lions Club of Digboi, Rotary Club of Digboi, also participated in the drill. At the concluding session, Brig (Dr) BK Khanna, senior specialist, National Disaster Management Authority, spoke on the various observations made by the expert panel of Brig Khanna, R Dubey, Director, National Disaster Management Institute, Bhopal and CR Deka, Chief Factories Inspector, Asom. He appreciated the response of the various organizations involved in the drill and pointed out the areas where further improvement could be effected. The session ended with vote of thanks from CR Deka, Chief Inspector of Factories, Asom. The National Disaster Management Authority was created after the enactment of the Disaster Management Act of the Government of India in December 2005 to spearhead and implement a holistic and integrated approach to disaster management in India. Since its inception, the authority has been stimulating disaster scenarios in various parts of the country and conducting detailed mock drills on disaster management, sources added.

JUSTICE continues to elude the surviving victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy in 1984 when 40 tonnes of the poisonous gas, methyl isocyanate, leaked from a Union Carbide factory in the town and other toxic chemicals leached into the ground. This injustice haunts not only lakhs of victims of the industrial disaster, one of the world's worst ever, but also Dow Chemicals, the company which bought Union Carbide and thereby acquired continuing public hostility to Union Carbide's shoddy response to the tragedy. Legal and bureaucratic delays in estimating the actual number of those affected by the disaster is partly to blame. A mass delegation of gas victims from Bhopal led by the Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila Udyog Sanghathan (BGPMUS) arrived in New Delhi on Saturday to present a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The gas victims seek support from the Government of India for their application pending before the Supreme Court for fivefold enhancement of the settlement fund, originally pegged at $470 million by a SC order of February 1989. That order estimated the number of the gas tragedy victims to be 1,05,000, including 3,000 dead. However, the Union of India's submission before the Supreme Court on 19.03.2007 has revealed that, as on February 28, 2007, over 5,73,537 victims, (including 5,294 "proven' death cases and 10,007 other death cases, where claims have been converted from death to injury), have been paid compensation. This was no doubt achieved by spreading thin the Settlement Fund meant for 105,000 victims. At the time, the settlement fund was worth Rs 712 crore. Depreciation of the rupee has increased the rupee equivalent amount three-fold. But the number of victims compensated has gone up more than fivefold. And till now, practically no action has been taken for remediation of the poisoning of soil and sub-soil water sources. The cost of these operations has not been determined and no one has come forward to bear these costs. BGPMUS had mobilised over one lakh individual petitions from the gas victims, saying that there is prima facie evidence for reviewing the basis of the settlement.

KOLKATA, Feb. 17: A three-storeyed leather goods manufacturing unit in Kasba Industrial Estate was completely gutted and leather products worth several lakhs were reduced to ashes in a fire that broke out around 8 am today. However, there were no reports of any injury or casualty. Seventeen fire tenders fought the blaze for more than five hours before bringing it under control.