Grain Elevator Explosion

Yesterday I read the terrible news that a flour dust explosion at a grain elevator in Almaty Region had killed 5 people. Last year I read that people died at an elevator in Kostanay Region as well. We have to state the fact plainly: nobody in this country is actually dealing with occupational safety. On paper, the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection is responsible for it, but that responsibility must be recognized as largely nominal. I have never once heard the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection raise the issue of occupational safety in any systematic way. Clearly, occupational safety here depends heavily on industrial safety, which falls under the Ministry of Emergency Situations. But the Ministry of Emergency Situations is a reactive body: if there is no threat to life, such enterprises are unlikely to come under inspection at all, and even when they do, the scheduled nature of the inspections makes it impossible to assess the real state of affairs. I do not know how enterprises are approved and commissioned in this country, but occupational safety and industrial safety clearly get the least attention. I have already written in detail that we have no single responsible authority for industrial safety, one that would handle not only inspections but also the approval of projects at the start of construction. Most of our enterprises were built back in the Soviet era or in the 1990s, and accordingly most of them fall well short of modern safety technology. Technical inspections of equipment, tanks, vessels and so on are carried out as a formality, and in the SME sector there is serious doubt that anyone checks or monitors anything at all.

In production facilities, dust is among the most dangerous substances: it is not only a leading cause of serious illness but also a cause of explosions. Anyone with a basic knowledge of physics will confirm that what explodes is not gas but a high concentration of dust; gas can only be the source of ignition and fire. That is most likely what happened at the elevator, since in all probability it lacked even the simplest aspiration equipment. I do not know how many more explosions and releases of harmful substances into the environment it will take for the state to really get to grips with occupational safety, industrial safety and environmental protection. It is common knowledge that the source of all three problems is enterprises that have no desire to minimize emissions at source or to create safe spaces, either inside their facilities or outside them. We need to rewrite the laws, create a single state body for occupational and industrial safety, raise fines and penalties significantly, carry out a total inspection of all enterprises, and agree with each of them a road map for modernizing their industrial safety and occupational safety. Unfortunately, most business owners behave like robber barons and fail to understand that over the long term human capital delivers more value than the short-term profits gained by skimping on industrial safety and occupational safety.