A strong Earthquake of magnitude 7.3 Richter hit Iraq and Iran causing above 120 fatalities
On 12th November 2017, an unforeseen tremor has hit the borders of Iran and Iraq which killed more than 200 lives and injured thousands of people. Though the USGS (US Geological Survey) stated that the magnitude measured to a strong intensity of 7.3 Richter scale, the Iraq meteorology official measures it to 6.5 Richter with epicenter in Penjwin in Sulaimaniyah. Also about 4.5 Richter scale of magnitude were recorded in Kuwait too. This quake of 7.3 magnitude has jerked hundreds of life and expected to cause even more fatalities as there is lot of victims in the rubble to be rescued yet.
More than 30 were injured in Iraq and almost 200 people were killed in Iran as of today’s record. Mojtaba Nikkerdar, Iranian Governor said “There are still people under the rubble. We hope the number of dead and injured won’t rise too much, but it will rise.” Thus the number of death numbers is expected to count more with time.
Did you know! Earthquakes kill approximately 8,000 people each year and have caused an estimated 13 million deaths in the past 4000 years.
In such disastrous situations we shouldn’t panic, instead with a keen knowledge and understanding helping the victims out of rubble saves many lives.
Here are few Safety measures to be followed during and after the earthquakes,
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- • The first and foremost thing is to get to a safer and protective place
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- • Instruct the people to get out of the high roof buildings to outer space only when it is safe to leave the building
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- • Stay away from the glass, walls, heavy objects or anything that may possibly fall
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- • Once after the shaking stops help the victims to bring out safely without disturbing the environment around
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- • Rescue and protect the children first
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- • Do not use elevators in such tragic cases
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- • If you are outdoors, stay away from the tall buildings, trees, electric lines and other hazards
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- • Prioritize humans to save instead of any worldly materials
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- • Always it is mandatory for every household to maintain the first aid kit and be equipped with better evacuations in case of urgencies
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- • Do not lit the candles, or turn on the gas or electric switches
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- • Give the first aid and the necessary treatments immediately to the victims in order to bring them to life
- • Check for other hazards that may arise like fire accidents etc. and avoid the endangers that may fuel up the threats
A profound knowledge and awareness may help many to save and to be saved from the disasters and calamities. To ensure more of your safety during an accident, or in order to maintain a safe environment, knowledge on safety is important. So get yourself and your organization equipped with our Corporate Services to get acquainted with the First aid practices.
Fire Accident in a Godown Near Howrah Bridge in Kolkata
Calamities occurred by fire is never an easy thing to digest. On November 7, 2017 there was a fire accident in Kolkata near Howrah Bridge that disturbed the usual evening of few people and pedestrians around there. This disaster took place around 7 p.m. in the Warehouse at Armenian Ghat off Strand Road. The godown had flammable chemicals and diesels which stirred up the flames to be even more vulnerable and there were few explosions too. It was a challenging situation for firemen to extinguish the fire break out. They have sprinkled water to the point of fire in order to prevent further outbursts. Almost 20 Firemen worked harder for over 4 hours to bring the fire under control.
Fire may engulf anything and anybody leaving no traces of life and the loss cannot be compensated with anything. So it is our prior duty to maintain a safe atmosphere, which avoids such disasters from fire. Thankfully no one was harmed or injured in this fire accident. However it does not incur a life, but has affected costs and properties.
As per the reports, the fireman has stated that there is no fire safety alertness in the godown where the materials were stored. Also a Senior Fire Safety Professional has said that there were many combustible materials stored inside which increased the intensity of fire and its explosions. In viewing this kind of disasters, fire safety audit is mandate for all the companies to ensure a safe working environment.
Source : Mirror Now – Youtube
Lack of good safety practices, insufficient hazard assessments and failure of fire safety equipment are the main reasons for such accidents to get worsen. A fire management system is a key obligation for all the organizations to control, manage and implement the Fire safety procedures to minimize the fire risks. At NIST, we provide extensive fire safety auditing and consulting services to various public and private organizations to streamline the organizational activities and ensure accident free records. Our multi-disciplinary team with cross-domain expertise monitors your company’s existing plans & procedures, recommend appropriate fire safety systems and provide emergency evacuation plans and other effective firefighting strategies in order to comply with legislation and meet the company’s statute in health and safety.
How can we be safe around Fire?
Fire may break out in anywhere at any time. Everybody must know about Fire safety precautions at least possible level to prevent fire incidents and how to react in case of a fire accident as well. So that we could protect ourselves from fire injuries. As far as our day-to-day life is concerned, safety on fire can be categorized into three sections such as safety at home, safety at workplace and safety at common places. When safety at home is concerned, gas cylinder is the major reason in causing fire incidents in houses. To avoid this, gas stove should be completely switched off when not in use. Secondly, electrical wiring connections must be verified often to find any short cuts and faults. Moreover, the toxic and inflammable materials should be kept in safe places avoiding direct sunlight.
When workplace is concerned, we must clearly know the routes leading to emergency exits, the locations where fire alarms are fixed, how to use Fire Extinguishers and maintain good house-keeping around our premises. Those who work with toxic substances should wear Personal Protective Equipments (PPE) without fail. We should strictly adhere to fire safety rules and regulations of workplace in order to protect ourselves and others. In case of fire accident in common places, we have to vacate from the spot as soon as possible as there could be subsequent explosions due to the fire that has already broken out.
What is fire and safety Management?
The aim of Fire and safety management is to ensure that adequate safety measures are implemented in the organisation to prevent fire accidents. This management system consists various aspects such as identifying the potential risks due to fire, creating safety policy, planning & monitoring of fire prevention methods and reviewing of system. The effective implementation of this system will prevent or minimize the accidents as low as reasonably possible, thereby prevents or minimizes the injuries and fatalities as the result.
In Fire and safety management system, the risk identification stage traces the places and events that could lead to fire accidents and identifies the people who may be vulnerable to accidents. The safety policy consists policy statement, responsibilities of the people involved and the arrangements to be made in the premises. The monitoring process analyses the effective functioning of the safety arrangements by carrying out performance measures. Review process is the essential element in this system, which assesses the effective functioning of the existing one. The appropriate changes that required in the system could be adapted once the review process is over.
World First Aid Day -2017
The World First Aid Day is celebrated worldwide on second Saturday of September in every year. The International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) and Red Crescent Societies started to celebrate First Aid Day since the year 2000 and it is being continuously celebrated for the last 17 years. The aim of this day is to create awareness among people in order to save invaluable human lives in day – to – day and crisis situations.
‘It’s all about saving lives’
Considering the general nature of the organization IFRC, it works fundamentally to empower common people to act as volunteers and trains them to provide First Aid treatment. Secondly, this organization plays a remarkable role in the times of disaster and emergency situations. They provide very essential, life-saving First Aid techniques to sufferers while they are waiting for professional medical support. To be specific, they are saving millions of lives, i.e., around 160.7 million people are being served through their First Aid services and around 110 million people in disaster times in a year.
‘First Aid – it is for anybody at anywhere’
First aid is a very essential step towards saving the lives of sufferers before bringing them to medical Centers. It increases the chances of survival by immediate action and providing appropriate life-saving support. The purpose of First Aid treatment is to preserve life in the time of emergency, reduce the suffering due to injuries and applying relevant methods to promote recovery. First aid is not only about physical treatments due to injuries, it includes psycho-social support when a victim has been encountered a traumatic event.
‘First Aid is a first safety tool to save lives’
First Aid Tips
- If there is a bleeding, the injured spot must be gently pressed using a clean cloth for over 3-15 minutes non-stop. Then it must be cleaned by lukewarm water. If the bleeding occurs on nose, it should be pinched for 10 minutes and face must be leaned forward, strictly not backwards.
- In cases of fire burns on any part of the body, cold running water must be poured onto the spot for over 10 -15 minutes.
- If eyes are subjected to any wound, cold wet cloth can be used to cover the eyes. If eyes are splashed by any chemical, eyelids must be opened and cleaned by lukewarm water immediately.
First Aid in Workplace
It is very essential to appoint First Aiders in companies, which are involving in risky work processes and use toxic chemical substances. The First Aiders can immediately respond with emergency situations to save lives of people in cases of fire or any other injuries. Importantly, the First Aiders have to be formally certified once after obtaining a proper training. In order to satisfy this need, many safety providers are offering First Aid certification courses.
NIST is the major safety provider in India, which offers first Aid courses to corporates. We are proud to say that more than 500+ National and International First Aid certificates were provided to candidates so far.We strongly hope that our First Aid training provided to companies might have saved many lives of workers and helped the injured by immediate treatments.
71st Independence Day – 2017
“I’m a lover of my own liberty, and so I would do nothing to restrict yours”
– Mahatma Gandhi
India, our mother country attained freedom at midnight of 14th August 1947 from the British rule. This year, we are celebrating the 71st Independence Day with full of enthusiasm and spirit as we do at all time. Obviously, this day drives us to feel patriotism and pride about our mother land. It is the appropriate time in a year to honor the bravery & sacrifices of our freedom fighters and taking pledge to protect the values of freedom, which we enjoy today.
Freedoms that we enjoy
The Constitution of India provides us various kinds of freedom whereas right to equality is an essential right that we enjoy in our country. It insists on the equality of Indian citizens before the law irrespective of caste, race, gender and place of birth. Similarly, right on religion gives the fundamental right to conduct our prayers and rituals independently. As far as politics is concerned, every citizen of India has the opportunity to occupy any position in the frame work of constitution with the purpose of serving public by getting support from people. Our election system is unique and free & fair.
On top of all, freedom of expression is highly encouraged in our country to express one’s opinion without interference. It means, we have the right to support or oppose the opinion of others. Now-a-days, we are expressing our ideas and opinions using digital platform like social media, blogs, email and etc. to others. In addition to all these freedoms, we are enjoying other freedoms such as right to education, culture, property.
Growth after Independence
In our country, Five year plan system helped us to hit saturated levels in sectors like agriculture, service and many more. When agriculture is concerned, expansion of farming area and high yielding crops are the major factors that enormously contributed to the growth. In recent years, agri- biotech sector has also witnessed a sea-change growth. When technological developments are concerned, the sectors like teleservices and information technology have crossed remarkable milestones. Above all, our country has seen immense developments in education, infrastructure, health care and scientific achievements.
Celebrations in NIST
Every year, NIST, the major safety training and consulting company celebrates Independence Day with full of enthusiasm and zeal. The management and employees celebrated the day with same tempo in this year too. Employees decorated their places with tricolors and models aesthetically.
The great writer Mark Twain quoted,
“It takes eighty nations, speaking eighty languages, to people her, and they number three hundred millions”
We must feel proud to be the national of historic and prestigious country, India. As a citizen of India, we have to dedicate ourselves to the service of our country in all possible ways and contribute to the developments with steadfast humanity.
Fire outbreak in HPCL Oil tank due to lightning
The globe where we live, is being very active with innumerable natural activities on its surface at every moment. It ranges from the movement of electrons in a minuscule atom to vast phenomenons such as sunrise, thunder, rain, lightning, cyclones and etc. Inspite of the fact that nature is supporting the mankind in all possible ways, sometimes we are troubled by event such as lightning, unavoidably.
We all know, the various causes for fire accidents are electric short circuit, unquenched flames of cooking devices, manual negligence, oil spillage, overheating and many more. Apart from all these reasons, lightning is one of the cause for fire accidents and it occurs because of very high electric charge difference developed in the cloud.
About the incident
Recently, a minor Fire accident happened in Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) in Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh on 29th of July at 7 pm. The lightning hit the crude oil storage tank, which holds thousands of liters of oil and fire blaze broke out from the tanker immediately. Fire tenders rushed to the spot immediately and firemen settled the fire within an hour without any casualty. Fortunately, there was continuous and heavy rainfall, which minimized the effects of the incident; otherwise fire could have spread to nearby oil tanks.
Risks due to lightning
- There are nearly 2000 thunderstorms happening worldwide at any moment of time. Each thunder is capable of producing about 200 lightning strikes.
- Lightning discharges about 1-10 billion Joules of energy and produces the current of 30,000 Amperes to 50,000 Amperes.
- The air temperature around the lightning strike increases up to 20,000 degree Celsius.
- In a year, around 15 to 20 Oil tank fire breakouts are happening worldwide because of lightning attacks.
- 31% of the fire accidents in petroleum refineries are occurring by lightning.
How Lightning causes fire accident
On account of the fact that lightning cables of the lightning protection system are vulnerable to the risk of fire, they will be burnt when high current flows through it due to lightning. This open flame could lead to explode the nearby inflammable materials. If suppose, lightning attacks the electrical wirings, it will make the wires overheated and evaporate it, sometimes. Wear & tear in the roof of the oil containers due to ageing, possibilities of fume leakage, internal protrusions and irregularities, localized heating and bound charge problems and secondary arc risk are some other risk factors of the fire accidents in oil refineries.
Safety measures
- Automatic fire sprinklers should be installed, which will put down the fire whenever accidents happen.
- Thickness standards for the roof material of the oil tanks must be maintained.
- Good lightning protection system should be installed.
- Floating Roof Tanks – (FRT) grounding methods could be implemented.
- The Oil tanks could be equipped with Dissipation Array System Technology (DAS), which will prevent accidents due to lightning.
