Ctg depot fire: Jerrycan hazard was warned

"No shipping company was willing to transport the chemicals in plastic jars after the accident in Cambodia."

— An employee of BM container depot

In the last week of May, the Hathazari-based Al-Razi Chemical Complex was warned of the hazards of storing hydrogen peroxide in jerrycans. But the company was not stirred to action.

Then, a few days later, on the evening of June 4, a huge fire broke out at the BM Inland Container Depot, a Dutch-Bangladesh joint venture, in the town of Sitakunda, 20 miles north of the country's main port in Chattogram.

Hundreds of jerrycans of Al-Razi's hydrogen peroxide were stored in the container depot. Hydrogen peroxide is not a flammable substance but it can cause a fire to intensify.

Which is exactly what transpired when the fire came in contact with the jerrycans. There were multiple explosions that aggravated the blaze to such a degree that it took three days and at least 45 lives to bring under control.

But this was not the first incident of fire linked with Al-Razi's cavalier storage of the powerful oxidising agent hydrogen peroxide, which set off an inspection by Maersk (Cambodia) in May.

An export consignment of Al-Razi shipped on April 6 from the Chattogram port for Hung Hsing Garment (Cambodia) Co. caught fire while the vessel was waiting for Sihanoukville Port clearance.

The ship's floor was fully burnt and the roof damaged.

And the root cause was the storage of the 102 tonnes of hydrogen peroxide in the unapproved jerrycans, according to the inspection report by K2A Management, a certified cargo inspection outfit based in Phnom Penh.

The Daily Star has a copy of the report, which was conducted on May 25.

The jerrycans could not sustain the pressure built inside by the nature of the chemical and exploded, causing a fire in the vessel, the report said.

There were 3,400 jerrycans on board, with each container containing about 30 kilograms of hydrogen peroxides-50 percent.

The inspection report was forwarded to Al-Razi and the other concerned authorities in the last week of May, according to Mohammed Chowdhury, officer (operations) of Maersk Bangladesh.

As per rules, the concerned organisation is informed after an accident.

"The Al Razi Chemical Complex was also notified after the Cambodian accident. We have also provided them with the inspection report," Chowdhury told The Daily Star.

Contacted, Mujibur Rahman, a director of Al-Razi Chemical Complex, refused to comment on the inspection report.

"I am not in a position to talk as the doctor has advised me against it," he told The Daily Star over the phone.

Rahman, who is also a director of the BM Inland Container Depot and a treasurer of Awami League's Chattogram south unit, requested The Daily Star to contact the general manager of Smart Group, the parent company of Al-Razi and BM Inland Container Depot.

Shamsul Haider Siddiqui, general manager (admin) of Smart Group, termed the fire incident in Cambodian waters as nothing serious.

"Although I am not in charge of Al-Razi Chemical, from talking to the officials of the company, I came to know that the accident was minor. They said that there was smoke from a container and not fire due to the chemical stacked for about 39 days at the vessel."

He, however, said Al-Razi officials were not aware of an investigation commissioned by Maersk or of any investigation report.

"These chemicals were being exported in the plastic jerrycans for a while now but there has been no incident before the one in Cambodia," Siddiqui added.

In the first 11 months of this fiscal year, Al-Razi Chemical exported about 9,635 tonnes of hydrogen peroxide to 12 countries using the BM depot, according to data from the National Board of Revenue.

The consignment that caught fire and exploded had arrived at the depot at least five days before the accident on June 4, said an employee of BM Inland Container Depot on condition of anonymity.

"No shipping company was willing to transport the chemicals in plastic jars after the accident in Cambodia," he said.

As a result, the consignment remained in the depot alongside other non-hazardous containers, flaunting a rule of keeping chemical products in separate sheds.

"We did not find any fire extinguishing equipment for chemical-oriented fire at the depot and no warning sticker on any of the containers," said Shahidul Islam, senior station officer at Agrabad Fire Service and Civil Defence.

The deadly explosion caused by the fire was due to a lack of adequate firefighting system at the depot, concealment of chemical information and keeping chemicals in unprotected conditions, he said.

After the incident, six separate investigation committees have been formed by different government bodies including the Chagttogram Port Authority (CPA).

Asked if he was aware of the fire incident in Cambodia and a subsequent investigation report, CPA Chairman M Shahjahan replied in the negative.