The industrial hub needs to reassess its capacity to deal with pollution and incidents as it cannot control them efficiently, said pollution management experts
It took firefighters and pollution control officers nearly eight hours yesterday to put the fire at a chemical storage tank belonging to Map Ta Phut Tank Terminal company, an affiliate of the Siam Cement Group (SCG), under control.
The fire broke out in the late morning, around 10.45 am, at one of the storage tanks that kept about 8,000 cubic metres of Pyrolysis Gasoline or Pygas, a by-product of olefins production, which is a high octane number mixture that contains high hydrocarbon-based aromatics content. Pygas can be used as a high-octane benzene blending component or used in aromatic extraction applications.
According to the company’s website, it provides commercial port and storage terminal services with four marine jetties and 33 storage tanks capable of supporting more than 20 varieties of petrochemical products.
The fire sparked fears that it would spread to the adjacent tanks as it was briefly put under control before reigniting again in the afternoon, but as confirmed by the company’s executives during the press conference last night, only one tank of the company was damaged by the fire. One of its workers died and three others got injured as a result as they had gone up on the tank to check the chemical. The causes of the fire are still unknown and the company is investigating the incident to establish the causes of the fire, SCG President Thammasak Sethaudom said.
The incident has just repeated a similar fire incident at the same compound two years ago, in 2021, when three persons died and two more people got injured during the repair work. The long hours used to put the situation under control this time have also prompted pollution management experts to question the disaster preparedness and emergency response plans implemented by companies in the industrial estate.
Sonthi Kotchawat, the country’s noted pollution management expert and a member with expertise of the Lower House’s Standing Committee on Industry, said the fire had engulfed the tank for several hours, causing deaths and injuries as well as pollution further away. Its emergency response plan Level 1 prepared to handle the situation was apparently insufficient, prompting calls for it to be stepped into Level 2 and 3, under which further assistance for fire extinguishment from other companies was sought and swift evacuation of a number of people living nearby was undertaken.
The obviously delayed response prompted another question to be raised against the company’s compliance on its EIA and mitigation measures. As Mab Ta Phut is the country’s leading industrial hub and has hazardous chemicals to deal with, it’s necessary for the industrial estate to ensure safety for the public and the disaster preparedness and emergency response plans of companies there must go through a major review, the expert suggested.
Mab Ta Phut, he said, has actually been declared as the pollution control zone for more than 15 years, but the incidents related to pollution and hazardous substances keep happening, undermining its reputation. It’s therefore necessary for the industrial estate to undergo the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) to review its capacity to handle industrial companies that are popping up there as well as their potential pollution.
A number of residents there have filed complaints to the National Human Rights Commission in all those years, but they are still encountering disasters and pollution from their activities, he said.
The committee’s chair, Akaradej Wongpitakroj, said he would call in concerned authorities to discuss disaster preparedness and emergency response plans for the industry as the pollution and fire related incidents have recently occured too often and it’s clear that the disater preparedness and emergency response plans to put the incidents under control are ineffective.
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