BUNCEFIELD EXPLOSION - PERSISTENT HSE OVERSIGHT?

Added: (Wed Feb 15 2006)

Pressbox (Press Release) - Afetr the explosion at the Buncefield Oil Depot many in authority including the Chairman of the Health & Safety Commission said it was a very rare event. Bob Willcox disputes this and says it was nowhere near being rare enough. However no one disputes its severity.

Risk is defined as SEVERITY x CHANCE but HSE increasingly seems to say that risk is the same as chance and so severity is overlooked.

Chances are reduced by accident prevention and severity by hazard size reduction. These two aspects of safety practice go hand in hand at all times but seemingly not in the HSE. If a large hazard size would be the result of an accident HSE concentrates far more on prevention than on hazard reduction hence the huge size of Buncefield's damaging explosion. Sometimes HSE cannot distinguish between a general risk of death and a personal one. (The general chance the lottery will be won is high but the personal chance I will win it is very low!)

Over many decades Bob Willcox has noticed the same weaknesses in HSE practice and regulations for explosives. The Buncefield explosion indicates that they may be endemic throughout HSE.

For much more detail including safe distances from millions of gallons of petrol read his paper at www.explosafety.homecall.co.uk/Vapour%20Explosions.pdf