| An image from CSB's new safety video on the Imperial Sugar explosion |
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) today released a new nine-minute safety video on the combustible dust explosion at the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, Georgia, which claimed the lives of 14 workers, injured 36, and caused extensive property damage on February 7, 2008.
Entitled "Inferno: Dust Explosion at Imperial Sugar," the video includes a new four-minute 3-D computer animation depicting the first explosion - known as a "primary event" - that likely occurred inside a recently enclosed sugar conveyor, which was followed by massive secondary dust explosions that destroyed the plant's sugar packing buildings.
As CSB Chairman John Bresland noted in the video, "The accident at Imperial Sugar was the deadliest industrial dust explosion in the United States in decades. It illustrates the extremely serious nature of combustible dust hazards."
The video is available for viewing and downloading on the CSB's website as well as the agency's YouTube channel. Free DVDs can be requested by completing an online request form.
The CSB's final report on the accident was approved at a public meeting in Savannah on September 24, 2009. At the meeting the CSB recommended that OSHA move forward expeditiously with a new combustible dust standard, as the CSB first recommended in 2006, and urged Imperial Sugar and several trade associations to take other actions to reduce the hazard.
CSB investigators determined that the explosion resulted from ongoing releases of sugar from inadequately designed and maintained dust collection equipment, conveyors, and sugar handling equipment. Inadequate housekeeping practices allowed highly combustible sugar dust and granulated sugar to build up throughout the refinery's packing buildings.