Safety Alert: Cargo Stability

 

 

What happened:

During the discharge of paper reels from a cargo hold, stevedores discovered that some reels in the stow had been chocked up with polystyrene packing. During the discharge a reel which was chocked in this way toppled. The reel was 1.4m in diameter, 2.2m high and weighed 2.6 tonnes. Fortunately, no one was injured in the incident.

 

Key findings:
• The polystyrene chocking is likely to have been used to raise the height of the reel in the layer, in order to allow another layer of reels to be stacked on top.
• Polystyrene is not a suitable material to be used as weight bearing dunnage.
• Good awareness from the stevedores involved in the discharge prevented a more serious incident.

Subsequent Actions:
• A toolbox talk was carried out for those working in the hold to ensure awareness of the hazard.
• The management team engaged with the customer to request that polystyrene is not used in future shipments and that timber is used to provide a secure platform.
• Future shipments from this customer will be monitored to confirm that the corrective measures have been put in place.

Considerations for members:
• Members carrying out break bulk cargo operations may wish to consider the following actions:
• Review associated risk assessments and safe systems of work to ensure that the hazards associated with cargo stability during discharge is considered.
• Raise awareness of potential hazards through toolbox talks.
• Ensure details of cargo loading is received from the originating port, to assist in identifying potential issues prior to discharge commencing.
• Ensure that the reporting of near misses is encouraged, and that operational employees feel empowered to stop work if unexpected hazards are encountered.

 

FOR THE FULL REPORT CLICK HERE

 

ICHCA International is committed to helping industry to learn lessons fast, learn them once and make sure that they stay learnt. This information is intended to provide all organisations in the cargo supply chain with the opportunity to consider the events and to review and adapt their own health and safety control measures to proactively prevent future incidents

We are grateful to Port Skills & Safety and RMS Ports for providing details and for raising awareness. We acknowledge their commitment to sharing learning to benefit others. If you have similar operations, please share this information with managers, operatives and any potentially affected third parties as appropriate. Please also review any of your relevant operations for similar hazardous conditions, risks, and controls. Learning content like this is highly valuable as it is based on real-world experience. We encourage everyone with publishable information about incidents to send it to us, so that we can raise awareness across the whole industry. Please contact us at secretariat@ichca.com; sharing your insight could save a life or prevent injury.