Petronas carries out fire drill for major LPG cooking gas dealer in Miri
Borneo Post Online, 5 September 2014
MIRI: Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) has successfully carried out its first fire drill for its liquefied natural gas (LPG) cooking gas dealer in the state on Wednesday.
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Grace (left) coordinating relief and rescue operation at the safe zone during a scenario.
The fire drill held at Syarikat Pusakabumi – a major gas distributor for Petronas Miri – involved 11 staff of the company and its administration manager, Grace Assim, and some 30 staff from all the relevant departments and agencies, the police, the Medical and Fire and Rescue (Bomba) Departments, Rela, Occupational Safety and Health Department (Dosh), Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) Department, and senior officials from Petronas in the state and Sabah including Ahmad Muhamad (regional manager of GPC Business Sarawak).
Among those present were Miri fire chief Supt Ali Bema and Chief Inspector Arman Khan Abdullah and Dr Chia Boon Yang from Miri Hospital.
Ahmad said the fire drill was the first for the state for its LPG dealer to determine their preparedness for any emergencies like fire outbreaks.
“This drill is part of our HSE enhancement programme. We have conducted other safety programmes like defensive driving but for fire drill, this is the first one for Sarawak. We will conduct soon in other some 50 LPG dealers in Sarawak,” he told The Borneo Post.
Meanwhile, in the fire drill scenario which started at 10.19am, six out of the 11 staff of the company were ‘injured’ following an incident where a forklift operator lost control of his machine and rammed into a one tonne lorry laden with emptied gas cylinders.
Due to the impact, the gas cylinders fell over and some hit a nearby worker and ‘broke’ his arm and leg, while the lorry crashed into the concrete wall and subsequently the front part of the lorry burst into flames. Its driver and co-driver were ‘seriously injured’ and were trapped inside and had to be rescued by Bomba personnel.
Another forklift operator ‘panicked’ upon seeing the incident and he applied the emergency brake on his forklift and was thrown out of the vehicle and ‘broke’ his left leg, while a staff who ‘went hysterical’ upon seeing the incident ‘fainted’ at the scene.
The relevant agencies were notified of the incident by manager Grace, and they rush to the scene, Bomba personnel in one fire tender arrived in six minutes after being informed of the incident at 10.31am and they managed to put out the fire in several minutes. The place was declared safe at 10.54am. The ‘injured’ were later sent to Miri Hospital in an ambulance for further treatment.
