Highway petrol truck infernos need not occur

Scenes of overturned petroleum trucks surrounded by frantic members of the public scooping spilled fuel, followed by predictable explosions and fires, horrific cries of anguish and fright as many perish have become common features in Africa.

A high correlation perhaps with the high poverty indices associated with Africa, where the reward/risk ratio tilts towards taking serious deadly risks for the reward of a few collected litres of petrol. The booming motorbike transport sector has created a ready market for such small gasoline collections.

The latest incident was at Morogoro in Tanzania where a fortnight ago over 80 citizens perished from an inferno while scooping gasoline from an overturned petroleum truck. Then, this week, August 18, “scores of people” are feared dead when a petroleum truck overturned at a trading centre in Western Uganda.

In professional circles we say that all accidents are preventable, and when they do occur, impacts can be minimised by effective emergency response preparedness. And this is exactly what happened last week in Nakuru town when a potential highway disaster was averted by an alert petroleum truck driver. He detected a petroleum leak, perceived the danger it posed, parked the truck in a safer highway section, and then alerted emergency responders.

The police smartly controlled the traffic and the crowds, while the firefighters dispersed the spill. This is a proof that highway petroleum truck infernos can indeed be prevented, and that lessons learned from the 2009 truck fire at Sachang’wan, Nakuru County, are being put into practice.

The most serious petroleum fire incidents that have occurred in Kenya have involved gasoline and liquefied petroleum gas(LPG). The 2011 Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) depot fire incident at Nairobi’s Sinai slums resulted in about 100 fatalities, and in severity it ranks second to the Sachang’wan truck inferno which claimed over 110 lives.

A similar night fire at the same KPC Nairobi depot in 1982 had no fatalities or injuries, but burned down a tank full of regular gasoline. Both the 1982 and 2011 KPC depot incidents were attributed to poor plant maintenance. The 1982 spill flowed into a storm drain, caught fire at a nearby kiosk, with the fire flashing back to the source gasoline tank.

In 2000, four LPG wagons disconnected from the Mombasa-Nairobi train at Syokimau and rolled back 10km in-line to Athi River station where they clashed causing a major LPG explosion that killed 34 sleeping residents in the neighbourhood.

In 1980s a petroleum delivery truck wrongly emptied gasoline into a kerosene tank at a filling station. The explosive mixture was sold to neighbourhood households. At night several houses caught fire as lamps and stoves were lit, with a number of serious casualties.

In 1979 a truck was discharging LPG at the Ambassador Hotel kitchen on the Tom Mboya street side when a leak from a faulty hose connection caught fire in the kitchen with the fire flashing back to the truck tank, killing about four persons. The driver had taken a stroll leaving a casual helper to supervise the discharge.

A heroic off-duty army sergeant strolling along Tom Mboya Street and acting on a soldier’s reflex, jumped into the cabin, found ignition keys in place, and drove the burning truck into the middle of the road where the LPG tank was cooled by the firemen until all the gas burned. The sergeant was awarded the Guinness Award for bravery.

In 1999 a truck delivering petrol to Machakos with an unlicensed assistant (turn-boy) at the wheel collided with a “matatu” causing a fire that killed six people. About five years ago an explosion at LPG storage and filling facility near Nyeri Town resulted in human casualties. History carries many other similar petroleum fire accidents, including tens of domestic LPG cylinder explosions.

It is all about errors of omission and commission which include poor equipment and facility maintenance; ignored operating procedures; missed training; and absence of effective emergency response systems.

It is for the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA) and the National Transport Safety Authority (NTSA) to ensure that Kenyans are not routinely killed or injured in the course of petroleum supply chain activities.