SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Four work­ers re­mained hos­pi­talised yes­ter­day and res­i­dents were left shak­en and trau­ma­tised fol­low­ing Thurs­day’s pow­er­ful ex­plo­sion at Ram­co In­dus­tries Ltd’s San Fer­nan­do fa­cil­i­ty. Now, res­i­dents are call­ing for an emer­gency evac­u­a­tion plan to pre­vent a re­peat of what they de­scribed as a fright­en­ing or­deal.

Po­lice said two of the in­jured work­ers are be­ing treat­ed in the High De­pen­den­cy and In­ten­sive Care Units at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, while the oth­er two un­der­went surgery. All sus­tained first-de­gree burns to 15 to 25 per cent of their bod­ies.

The ex­plo­sion oc­curred around 7 pm at one of the fa­cil­i­ty’s load­ing bays at Cross Cross­ing. Ac­cord­ing to Ram­co, the blaze was “swift­ly con­tained thanks to the prompt and co­or­di­nat­ed ef­forts of the emer­gency ser­vices.”

Po­lice said the fire start­ed af­ter a tank truck, in the process of be­ing loaded, drove off while still con­nect­ed—ig­nit­ing the blaze.

One work­er, speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, said he was in­side a build­ing when he felt the ground shake and heard some­one yelling, “Fire!” He and oth­ers ran for safe­ty.

He re­called see­ing a co-work­er with vis­i­ble burns: “His skin was peel­ing off on both hands, his nose and fore­head were peel­ing, and his nose was bleed­ing.”

He added that the truck dri­ver “smelled burnt” but ap­peared un­in­jured. “He told me he drove off while it was con­nect­ed be­cause he didn’t know. Pro­to­col is the tech­ni­cian load­ing the tank must take the key from the ig­ni­tion un­til load­ing is done, but ap­par­ent­ly that didn’t hap­pen. The dri­ver saw the key and just drove off.”

An­oth­er in­jured work­er’s cov­er­all was scorched, though the full ex­tent of his in­juries was un­known. Of­fi­cers from the Mon Re­pos Fire Sta­tion de­clared the site safe around 9.15 pm.

The blast’s force was so in­tense it sent a tank lid fly­ing near­ly 500 feet, smash­ing through a glass win­dow at Enam In­dus­tri­al Ser­vices Ltd in Dun­can Vil­lage.

“Apart from the bro­ken glass, every­thing in­side was dis­placed. If some­one had been here, it could have been dead­ly,” said one em­ploy­ee.

As a pre­cau­tion, a near­by ser­vice sta­tion was cor­doned off but re­opened yes­ter­day.

Gre­go­ry Lange, who lives across the road from Ram­co, said he first heard a rum­ble his eight-year-old grand­son mis­took for thun­der—then a loud “boom.”

“There was a huge fire­ball over Ram­co’s back wall. That’s when every­body just scam­pered out the house and ran up the hill to get dis­tance from the fire,” Lange said.

His grand­son, he said, was ter­ri­fied.

“All you see­ing is ex­plo­sions, one af­ter the oth­er, in­side the com­pound.”

De­scrib­ing the or­deal, his wife Teck­ler Welling­ton-Lange said, “We left every­thing. House open. Didn’t both­er to take a phone, a wal­let, noth­ing. Our neigh­bours too. We just ran up the hill. There was ex­plo­sion af­ter ex­plo­sion. It was ter­ri­ble. I’ve nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced any­thing like that and I don’t want to again.”

Res­i­dents re­turned home less than an hour af­ter the fire was ex­tin­guished, but Welling­ton-Lange said Ram­co must now im­ple­ment a prop­er emer­gency plan for sur­round­ing res­i­dents.

Sher­az Dabiedeen, who owns SRF Au­to Re­pairs Ser­vice near­by, said he and his fam­i­ly took refuge at a rel­a­tive’s home un­til the sit­u­a­tion was un­der con­trol.

“It was very fright­en­ing. We have a busi­ness here. We don’t know how bad it could’ve got­ten,” he said, adding that Thurs­day’s in­ci­dent was worse than an ex­plo­sion he wit­nessed in 1981.

“It might be cost­ly to re­lo­cate the en­tire plant, but that would be the ide­al so­lu­tion.”

In a state­ment, Ram­co con­firmed that all un­af­fect­ed em­ploy­ees were safe­ly evac­u­at­ed un­der its emer­gency pro­to­cols.

“Our thoughts and prayers re­main with the af­fect­ed em­ploy­ees and their fam­i­lies, and we are com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing them,” the com­pa­ny said.

Ram­co said it is work­ing close­ly with the Min­istry of En­er­gy, the Fire Ser­vice, and OSH Au­thor­i­ty to de­ter­mine the ex­act cause of the fire.

It said that while the fa­cil­i­ty has sus­tained some dam­age, its team has iso­lat­ed these as­sets. It added that tem­po­rary mea­sures are be­ing im­ple­ment­ed to min­imise any im­pact on cus­tomers.

Ram­co al­so as­sured the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties that their safe­ty is its high­est pri­or­i­ty and will be hold­ing con­sul­ta­tions with res­i­dents soon.

En­er­gy Min­istry mon­i­tors LPG sup­ply

Mean­while, the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries said it is mon­i­tor­ing ef­forts to en­sure con­ti­nu­ity of LPG sup­ply. En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal vis­it­ed the site on Thurs­day and chaired a meet­ing yes­ter­day with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Ram­co, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd, and Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors Ltd to plan ac­tions to min­imise sup­ply dis­rup­tion.

The min­istry al­so con­firmed a team of tech­ni­cal of­fi­cers has been as­signed to in­ves­ti­gate the in­ci­dent. That team, along with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Fire Ser­vice and the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health (OSH) Agency, con­duct­ed a full site in­spec­tion yes­ter­day.

In its own state­ment, the OSH Agency said the have de­ployed in­spec­tors to the site and have al­ready be­gun in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the in­ci­dent.