Shaoxing Yuejin Printing and Dyeing Co., Ltd. had a sewage pool collapse accident on May 14, causing one death and one injury. This is because the company had a wall collapse accident on March 9 that killed one person and injured three people. There were consecutive fatal accidents within the month, and the city government decided to escalate the investigation into the accident. Recently, the Shaoxing Municipal People’s Government approved the “Investigation Report on the “5.14” Sewage Pool Collapse Accident of Shaoxing Yuejin Printing and Dyeing Co., Ltd.”
The incident
May 2021 On the evening of March 14, Shaoxing Yuejin Printing and Dyeing Co., Ltd., located at Jiangzhong Road, Doumen Street, Yuecheng District, Shaoxing City, was producing as usual. At 19:17, the outer wall of the sewage tank opposite the water washing workshop suddenly bulged outwards in the middle. The wall instantly collapsed from the middle. The cooling tower and exhaust gas treatment device on the top of the pool rushed towards the water washing workshop opposite along with the sewage and sludge. Part of the wall on the south side of the workshop was knocked down, causing the workshop employees to be crushed and injured, causing one death and one injury.
Cause Analysis
After investigation, Yuejin Printing and Dyeing did not follow the recommended procedures According to the design drawings, he took the initiative to change the design structure of the sewage tank without authorization during construction, and used aluminum trichloride solution as a sewage treatment agent for a long time in violation of the process design requirements, causing a large amount of corrosion and breakage of the steel bars in the concrete beams and concrete walls of the sewage tank. The tensile bearing capacity of the beam and the flexural bearing capacity of the wall exceeded the limit state of the bearing capacity of the beam and wall. The pool collapsed due to local damage to the structure, which was the direct cause of the accident.
The accident investigation team found that Yuejin Printing and Dyeing’s failure to fulfill its main responsibility for safety production, Hengxing’s non-standard construction management, and Shengli’s environmentally-friendly design were indirect causes of the accident. Specifically:
1. Shaoxing Yuejin Printing and Dyeing Co., Ltd. Failure to appoint a full-time safety manager as required, chaotic safety management, ineffective investigation and management of hidden dangers, failure to carry out special investigation and rectification of hidden dangers in sewage pools as required by government departments, failure to hire a third party to test sewage pools, and unauthorized changes to the construction and design of sewage pools. The process design was changed without authorization to use aluminum trichloride solution as a sewage treatment agent. Especially after the company failed to pay enough attention and strengthen production safety work after a fatal accident occurred on March 9, 2021, safety awareness was extremely weak.
2. Zhejiang Hengxing Construction Co., Ltd. The internal management was chaotic. The project manager did not have a construction engineer professional qualification certificate and did not perform construction in accordance with national standards. The construction quality did not meet the relevant national construction engineering safety standards, and construction changes were not formally designed.
3. Shaoxing County Shengli Environmental Protection Engineering Equipment Factory. Without formal design certification, the process design was changed according to Yuejin Printing and Dyeing’s requirements, process design drawings were issued, and the height of the pool was increased.
Accountability situation
Zhao Moumou, the actual controller of Yuejin Printing and Dyeing He was suspected of committing a serious accident and was transferred to the judicial authorities for criminal prosecution.
Two companies including Yuejin Printing and Dyeing and Hengxing Construction and three individuals were given administrative penalties in accordance with the law.
Problems regarding the performance of duties of the four public officials of the local party committee, government and relevant departments discovered during the accident investigation were handed over to the local Discipline Inspection and Supervision Committee for further investigation and handling.
Preventive measures
From the perspective of accident enterprises, local supervision, and industry supervision Further clarify the responsibilities at other levels, comprehensively investigate the safety hazards of sewage pools in the city, carry out safety inspections of sewage pools, and effectively eliminate various accident hazards.
Figure 1 Location map of the accident unit
Figure 2 Collapsed pool
Picture 3: Part of the south wall of the washing workshop that was knocked down
Figure 4 The steel bars in the tie beam were rusted and pulled out, and the concrete was severely eroded
Figure 5 The steel bars inside the wall panel are rusted and broken</p
