HSE Incident Reports

HSE incident reports

In the early years of HSE, they took seriously the responsibility of informing the public about major incidents by way of a special report, as envisaged by section 14(2)(a) of the Health and Safety at Work Act.

A series of reports covering the following was published

Laporte, Ilford 1975 hydrogen explosion, electrolysis plant

Appleby Frodingham steelworks, 1975 molten metal water explosion

Dow Chemicals, Kings Lynn, 1976, explosion following runaway decomposition of Zoalene

Braehead container depot Renfrew, 1977 chemical warehouse fire and explosion

Permaflex Stoke 1980 aerosol fire

Whitefriars Glass, Wealdstone 1980 major propane release during tank decommissioning

General Foods, Banbury 1981 custard powder dust explosion

Chemstar Stalybridge 1981 flammable liquids fire and explosion

B & R Hauliers, Salford 1982 chemical warehouse explosion

Manro products Stalybridge 1982 flammable liquids fire and explosion

Brightside Lane warehouse, Sheffield 1984 chemical warehouse fire

Abbeystead, Lancs 1984 gas explosion at water treatment works

Putney 1985 Explosion caused by mains gas leakage into a block of flats

Rutherglen 1985 Explosion caused by mains gas leakage into block of flats

BP Grangemouth oil refinery 1987  hydrocracker explosion, and unrelated fires

Peterborough Explosion 1989 transport of explosives

International Biosynthetics 1991

Hickson and Welch,  Castleford  1992 fire during cleaning of still containing nitration residues

Havkong incident Firth of Forth 1993 ship tanker charging butane escaped moorings

Associated Octel Ellesmere Port 1994 fire

Texaco Refinery Milford Haven 1994

Conoco Phillips refinery 2001

Corus Port Talbot 2001

Since 1994, the flow of such reports has sharply dwindled .

For an insight to how earlier dust explosion incidents were investigated and reported, Alan has scans of reports to the UK parliament of

two incidents in 1911 in Glasgow and Liverpool which killed between them 44 people

an explosion in Manchester which killed 3 people in March 1913 at a factory which made dextrine (starch)

an incident in 1930 which killed 11 people at the same Liverpool site as in 1911.

email Alan if you would like a copy of any of these.

There’s too much good material here to be lost, but it is not easy to retrieve. Anything earlier than about 1995 sometimes seems to be completely missing from an internet search. Alan is in the process of turning all this into pdf files, to make them available for free. Please email if you want to see any of these reports.