Six staff members including the factory director died apparently of suffocation when they in turn fell into a fish oil tank in a serious industrial accident that occurred at the IDI Fish Oil Refinery Plant in the southern Dong Thap Province on Wednesday. Another was injured.
The accident began at the plant, located in Lap Vo District, at about 10 am September 4 when two engineers Lam Thanh Phong and Tran Tan Loi were assigned to take samples of fish oil from a 9 meter-high tank for testing.
As a rule, when the oil level in the tank is high enough, the taking of samples can be made when the takers stand on top of the tank, but at that time, as the level in the tank was low, Phong walked down a staircase along the inner side of the tank wall to take samples.
When he had gone down half the staircase, he suddenly passed out and fell into the fish oil below, witnesses said. Loi shouted out for help, and he and four others later went downstairs in turn, but all of them allegedly suffered from suffocation and slipped into the fish oil.
After six people had already fallen in, another staff of the plant, Dang Van An, 26, also went downstairs but he had to go back up due to low oxygen level. An later fainted when he reached the top of the tank and was taken to the Lap Vo Hospital for emergency treatment.
Workers then used tools to force open the tank and removed the six victims out of the fish oil but all of them had died.
Besides Phong and Loi, the other four dead victims were the plant director Mai Huu Ton, 31; Trieu Ba Tra, 39, one of Ton’s deputies; and two engineers Le Dinh Thai, 27 and Le Xuan Thuan, 20.
Police have performed autopsies on the victims before returning them to their relatives.
The representative of the International Development Investment Corporation (IDI), the plant’s holding company, yesterday visited the families of the victims and gave each of them VND100 million ($4,800).
Today, the Vietnam Labor Confederation's representatives also visited them and gave each of them VND3 million as initial support. The district authorities also gave the same support to these families.
Local police are coordinating with the plant to investigate.
Đăng ký: VietNam News
