Petrochemical Plant Explosion

Four killed, four injured in a petrochemical plant explosion in South Korea

On February 11, 2022, an explosion at a petrochemical facility in South Korea killed four people and injured four.?The explosion involved a steam cracker handling naphtha, a highly flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture.?It occurred during a leak test as a part of a cleaning process that is conducted every four years at the facility.?This facility is the newest of the three Yeochun Naphtha Cracking Center (YNCC) facilities which converts naphtha into raw materials used in the manufacturing of plastics and chemicals.??

Several days after the explosion, investigations were conducted to determine whether YNCC violated any safety regulations.?The Serious Disasters Punishment Act had just been introduced in South Korea in late January of 2022 to punish business owners and management deemed responsible for workplace accidents resulting in injury or death, which made YNCC the first petrochemical company to be penalized under this law.?Owners and CEOs can face one or more years of jail or get fined up to 1 billion won ($834,028).??

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/2/11/south-korean-petrochemical-plant-blast-kills-four