San Juanico disaster
The San Juanico disaster involved a series of fires and explosions at a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tank farm in the settlement of San Juan Ixhuatepec (popularly known as San Juanico), municipality of Tlalnepantla de Baz, State of Mexico, Mexico on 19 November 1984.[1] The facility and the settlement, part of Greater Mexico City, were devastated, with 500–600 victims killed, and 5000–7000 suffering severe burns.[2] It is one of the deadliest industrial disasters in world history,[1] and the deadliest industrial accident involving fires and/or explosions from hazardous materials in a process or storage plant since the Oppau explosion in 1921.
Date
19 November 1984
Pemex LPG storage plant in San Juan Ixhuatepec
Tlalnepantla de Baz municipality, State of Mexico, Mexico
> 500
> 5000
Fire and explosions[edit]
In the early hours of 19 November 1984, the plant was being filled from a refinery 400 kilometres (250 mi) away. At that moment, two of the spheres and the 48 cylindrical vessels were filled at 90% of their capacity and the rest of the spheres at 50%.[15] Overall, the plant held about 11,000–12,000 cubic metres (390,000–420,000 cu ft) of LPG,[14] i.e., in excess of 300 TJ of energy equivalent[16] or roughly five times the energy released by the atomic bomb of Hiroshima.[17] Shortly before 5:40 a.m., the control room operators and those at the pipeline pumping station, sited 40 kilometres (25 mi) away,[3] noticed a decrease in pressure. A pipe between a sphere and the cylinders had ruptured, resulting in a continuous release of LPG. For 5–10 minutes, with the cause of the leak not identified, the resulting gas cloud built up, reaching an estimated size of 200 × 150 × 2 metre (660 × 490 × 7 ft). The cloud eventually reached one of the waste-gas flare pits at 5:45 a.m, and ignited.[15]
A flash fire ensued, which immediately transitioned to a violent vapor cloud explosion (VCE), likely due to its flame front acceleration being enhanced by the especially congested geometry of the plant. The blast (like the ensuing boiling liquid expanding vapor explosions (BLEVEs)) was felt and recorded by a seismometer at a National Autonomous University of Mexico lab located some 32 km (20 mi) away in Mexico City.[5][14] In a textbook case of the domino effect accident,[14] the explosion damaged further piping and storage tanks, which resulted in a massive conflagration fed by multiple LPG leaks.
About 90 seconds after the VCE blast, the first tank BLEVE occurred.[4] The explosion was witnessed by the pilot of a Pan Am flight on approach to the airport, who communicated to air traffic control that he believed a nuclear bomb may have exploded in the city.[18] Eight separate BLEVEs were recorded by the seismometer, with the last one at 7:01 a.m. The first and sixth registered the highest strength, at 0.5 on the Richter scale.[4] The BLEVE fireballs were up to 300 metres (980 ft) in diameter, and they had a duration of some 20 seconds.[3] Smaller explosions continued until 11 a.m.,[9] while the flames on the last large sphere was extinguished at 11 p.m.
The four smaller spheres were completely destroyed, with fragments propelled around the plant, some at a distance of 350 metres (1,150 ft) in public areas. The larger spheres collapsed to the ground, with their legs buckled due to the heat radiation they received. Only four of the bullet tanks survived. 12 of those that failed were launched from their supports with the furthest landing at 1,200 metres (3,900 ft). Missile fragments ejected weighed up to 30 tons. Gas explosions also occurred inside the plant buildings and the surrounding houses.[1][14] At the Gasomático site, 100 parked trucks loaded with LPG household cylinders weighing 20–40 kilograms (44–88 lb) were completely burned-out and hundreds of secondary explosions took place.[9]
An area of a few square kilometers was affected, with varying degrees of damage from the fires and the missiles. Around 150 homes were estimated completely destroyed, with a few hundred sustaining lesser damage.[9] It is estimated that the thermal radiation produced by the BLEVEs was in excess of the threshold of pain (4.0 kW/m2) within a radius of 1,850 metres (1.15 mi).[19]
Five plant workers perished, but the majority of the victims died in the housing area surrounding the plant, mostly within 300 metres (980 ft) from the centre of the storage area.[9] Most of the casualties were surprised in their sleep. The disaster resulted in 500 to 600 deaths, and 5000–7000 severe injuries. Radiant heat generated by the fire incinerated most corpses to ashes, with only 2% of the recovered remains left in recognizable condition.[1]
Emergency response[edit]
The first call to the emergency services was made at 5:45.[3] More than 200 firemen were deployed to the affected area in the six hours after the first explosion. Fire-fighting water was provided to the site by tank trucks normally used for domestic potable water distribution.[18] A major rescue operation mounted, which reached its climax between 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. Around 4000 people participated in rescue and medical activities, including 985 medics, 1780 paramedics, and 1332 volunteers. 363 ambulances and five helicopters were involved.[3] After the last BLEVE, the firemen kept cooling the two larger, unexploded spheres. While this was undoubtedly an act of bravery, they were exposing themselves to further potential BLEVEs that would have surely killed them.[18][20] The metro system and public buses were commandeered to transport the wounded to hospitals and the evacuees to evacuation centers.[21] 200,000 people were evacuated from the area.[5][6]
Investigation[edit]
Initially, director-general of Pemex Mario Ramón Beteta and government officials attempted to shift the responsibility for the accident onto the gas-distributing businesses adjoining the terminal.[13][22][23] No results from a public inquiry or a Pemex investigation have ever been made available, except for a declaration of the Attorney General[6] released on 22 December 1984, which pointed to the gas escape having occurred at the row of bullet tanks next to the spheres. In this press release, it was also stated that the responsibilities were not to be sought in the lack of plant maintenance.[24][25][26] The Attorney found Pemex ultimately responsible for the disaster and summoned the company to provide to the government funds necessary for the indemnifications.[10][27]
On TNO's initiative and through mediation of the local Netherlands embassy, a Dutch team reached the accident site two weeks after the facts. This investigation was not instigated by the Mexican authorities or Pemex, but rather was a scientific mission whose purpose was testing physical models used in safety studies for the prediction of damage from industrial explosions, and examining the emergency response to the accident. The investigation was also participated by the Mexican Petroleum Institute (IMP).[5] IMP stated that the cause of the accident was already known, pointing to a disgruntled employee that had allegedly sabotaged the plant. They also added that further investigation would not necessarily be useful.[6]
The TNO report was issued in May 1985. Although the Dutch team did not primarily focus on the causes of the accident, the final report hypothesizes that the initial leak may have been caused by overpressure and rupture of a pipe to one of the cylindrical vessels (possibly due to the high discharge pressure (> 60 bars (870 psi)) of a booster pump in one of the underground pipelines), likely combined with a tank overfill and the consequent opening of a tank relief valve discharging to atmosphere. The report also stresses how it was the fires that brought about most of the destruction, with blast overpressures playing only a secondary role. It further calls attention to the congested plant layout as a factor that greatly contributed to the rapid escalation of the accident, and to the fact that poor land-use planning led to housing built within the credible damage radius from accidents originating from the plant. It also commends the work of the emergency services.[9]
An informal investigation was conducted by the U.S. Department of Transportation, which corroborated the TNO's findings on the cause of the accident, additionally pointing out that the overpressure should have been prevented by relief valves placed on the receiving pipelines, but these had not been installed. Their report also called attention to an earlier statement by Pemex that the pipelines were not isolated, with LPG being pumped into the terminal at the usual rate until 6:40 a.m., long after the onset of the accident. This further aggravated the fire, with an estimated additional fuel inventory of roughly 500 cubic meters (18,000 cu ft). The USDOT concluded that the main causal factors were "the human element, maintenance problems, and inadequate relief capacity and pressure control." They also identified two more contributing factors: multiple tanks being lined up (i.e., not isolated from) a common header, which increased the effectiveness of the chain reaction; and the failure of piping underneath the spheres as a consequence of the initial vapor cloud explosion, which meant that the consequent tank heating ultimately escalated to the BLEVEs.[24]
A team from KAMEDO (Katastrofmedicinska organisationskommittén, or Disaster Medicine Organization Committee) of the Swedish National Defence Research Institute were sent to Mexico for an ex-post evaluation of the medical emergency management.[1] Members of the team were experienced in BLEVE accidents, having already conducted a similar onsite inquiry in the aftermath of the Los Alfaques disaster of 1978.[28] They found that the response in treating the burns of the injured from San Juanico had been effective and supported by considerable local medical resources and experience.[28][29]
Other notable BLEVE accidents: