Safety Alert: Dropped fluff pulp

 

ICHCA member G2 Ocean has shared the following Safety Alert concerning a technical failure during a lifting operation.  Thankfully, there were no injuries, but the incident had the potential to have caused a fatality if fallen cargo had struck persons in the area.

 

 

A vacuum system was being used to lift a cargo of fluff pulp.  In this operation, there are no hooks connected to metal bands wrapped around the units, as is the case with other types of pulp.  No manual handling of the cargo hold is required for (un)hooking, and this reduces the risk of injuries.  In this instance there was a failure of the main vacuum hose and the load dropped with some parts falling on the vessel and other parts landing on the quay.  In line with safe systems of work, there were no personnel in the hazard zone.

 

This incident reinforces the importance of:

• implementing a no-go zone in the cargo hold and on the quayside during lifting operations
• the lifesaving rule ‘NEVER WALK UNDER A SUSPENDED LOAD’
• planned review of maintenance
• pre-use checks of lifting equipment and appliances

 

For the full Safety Alert, 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.

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 G2 Ocean 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.