Ethylene Oxide Explosion at a Chemical Plant 1962 Brandenburg, Kentucky

On April 19, 1962 a pre-dawn blast at a huge ethanolamine chemical plant owned by the Olin Corporation in Brandenburg, Kentucky, almost leveled the complex installation. A small quantity of ammonia gas mistakenly introduced into a 6500-gal ethylene oxide tank (not 10,000 as mentioned in the newsreel) triggered an exothermic polymerization and an explosion that shattered windows miles away. One plant worker was killed and 21workers were injured. Exothermic runaway reactions may occur when impurities or foreign materials are present in the storage tanks. The 1984 release of methyl isocyanate vapor from a storage tank at a Bhopal, India chemical plant was caused by the exothermic reaction of liquid methyl isocyanate with water. Over the past 50 years, hundreds of similar explosions and releases have occurred, tragedies that could have been avoided if good engineering in design, construction, maintenance and operation had been practiced and safety management program had been implemented and executed. That was the goal of Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 passed by Congress which required OSHA and EPA to issue and enforce regulations to help prevent accidental chemical releases. OSHA has responsibility for the protection of workers from accidental chemical releases and has promulgated the Process Safety Management Standard (29 CFR 1910.119) to satisfy this requirement. EPA has responsibility for protection of the general public and the environment from accidental chemical releases and has promulgating the Risk Management Program rule (40 CFR 68) to satisfy this requirement. For more information, go the the EPA page at http://www.epa.gov/oem/docs/chem/caa112_rmp_factsheet.pdf and the OSHA page at http://www.osha.gov/OshDoc/data_General_Facts/highly-hazardous-chemicals-fact... .
For an excellent review of this hazard, read the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board's 2002 Report No. 2001-01-H: IMPROVING REACTIVE HAZARD MANAGEMENT available at http://www.csb.gov/assets/document/ReactiveHazardInvestigationReport.pdf . This is clipped from the Universal Newsreel Volume 35, Release 33, available at the US National Archive in College park, Maryland.

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