KOZHIKODE: In a first of its kind in the country, the Department of Factories and Boilers (Kerala) in association with the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) and Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), will soon put in place a system to warn residents about an impending industrial accident in their area.
Under the system, in the event of any chemical emergency, people in the ‘impact zone’ would be warned about it through mobile SMS alerts. Necessary measures to be adopted to meet the emergency on the basis of the characteristics of the chemical involved will also be provided this way. The first phase of the project will cover major accident hazard (MAH) units and isolated storages in Kochi and the project will be extended to other parts of the state in the second phase.
The system- Remote Sensing Enabled Online Chemical Emergency Response System (ROCERS)- would give near real-time disaster monitoring and analysis that would integrate space-based technologies with Information and Communications Technology (ICT) tools for effective chemical emergency management.
In the initial stage of the project, Weather Monitoring Stations (which provides information regarding wind speed, wind direction, temperature, concentration of the chemical among others) and customised sensors would be set up in the three ammonia factories of the Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore Limited (FACT) at Ambalamugal, Udyogamandal industrial belt and at Willingdon Island.
The signing ceremony of Memorandum of Understanding for the establishment of ROCERS at Kochi will be held at Thiruvananthapuram on June 11. Director of Factories and Boilers P Pramod said, “In the initial stage, we are focusing on factory hazards involving the release of hazardous chemicals such as toxic/poisonous gases, vapours and aerosols.
At a later stage, the system will be used to warn about incidents of fire or explosion resulting in on-site or off-site emergencies and also will be extended to hazardous cargo carriers including Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) tankers.”
Hazard maps (which highlight areas that will be affected by or vulnerable to a particular hazard and thereby prevent serious damage and deaths) of major accident hazards have already been prepared using ALOHA (Areal Locations of Hazardous Atmospheres) software developed by United National Environment Programme. The location of MAH factories in the state and their hazard maps have been uploaded to ISRO’s geoportal, ‘Bhuvan’.
