Yesterday’s Jurong Shipyard accident, where 89 workers have been injured, was characterized as “the worst industrial accident” in the recent time by a government official.
After failure of a jacking mechanism on one of the jack-up rig’s legs the newbuilt rig, named Noble Regina Allen, tilted 30 degrees injuring some of 89 shipyard workers. Nine of them have been detained in hospital and they are expected to be discharged soon.
Acting Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin visited the accident site today and received an update on the situation by MOM’s Occupational Safety & Health Inspectorate and Jurong Shipyard officials.
Speaking to reporters on-site after the visit, Mr. Tan said; “The next step is to investigate the cause of the incident and to see what lessons we can learn from that, whether there were effective procedures in place, why the mechanism did not work the way it was supposed to. What are some of the issues – and importantly from a procedures standpoint, were the procedures in place? What were the procedures in place? Was it followed? Was it effective? Those are lessons that we will have to find out in the course of our investigations.”
MOM’s Occupational Safety & Health Inspectorate commenced investigations on Monday, and officers were at the shipyard to interview workers involved in the accident as well as eye-witnesses.
On Monday, MOM instructed all work to stop at the affected rig. Minister Tan also stated that the stop-work order would remain until the Ministry is assured that the site is safe for workers to go back to work.
Mr. Tan said: “It remains for now, and I think it will take some time. The company is still assessing what should be the next steps in terms of rectifying the situation, so we’ll work closely with the company. For now, the stop-work order remains until we’re assured we can lift it.”
[mappress]
World Maritime News Staff, December 4, 2012