In addition to revealing the cracks in global health care, emergency preparedness, and response systems, COVID-19 also exposed the lack of capacity to run chemical plants safely under such conditions. On 7th May 2020, self-polymerization runaway reaction from an atmospheric storage tank in a polymer facility triggered the release of styrene to the atmosphere, resulting in 12 fatalities and hospitalization of more than 1000 individuals. A similar incident had happened 35 years back at Bhopal involving the release of methyl isocyanate resulting in one of the deadliest process safety incidents to date. Therefore, it is very important to understand the causal factors so that such high-risk incidents can be prevented in future. This paper presents a comprehensive investigative study of styrene gas leak at Vizag with special emphasis on probabilistic risk analysis of the loss of containment. Hazard perception study was performed to understand the possible hazardous scenarios in bulk styrene storage facilities for preventing such catastrophic recurrences. Energy barrier analysis was performed to study the inadequacy of pro-active and reactive barriers with respect to the accident case study. The analysis also considers the escalation factors resulting from extremities of COVID-19 lockdown. The self-polymerization reaction that resulted in toxic styrene dispersion was preventable owing to the advancements in safety engineering and loss prevention since Bhopal Gas Tragedy (1984). Based on the investigative analysis, it can be pointed out that this accident would have occurred even in the absence of COVID-19 restrictions, mainly due to negligence and complacency shown towards safety by the company’s management.

除了揭示全球医疗保健、应急准备和响应系统的漏洞之外，COVID-19 还暴露了在这种情况下缺乏安全运行化工厂的能力。2020 年 5 月 7 日，一家聚合物设施中的常压储罐​​发生自聚合失控反应，引发苯乙烯释放到大气中，导致 12 人死亡，1000 多人住院治疗。35 年前在博帕尔发生了类似的事件，涉及异氰酸甲酯的释放，导致迄今为止最致命的过程安全事件之一。因此，了解原因非常重要，这样才能在未来避免此类高风险事件的发生。本文对 Vizag 的苯乙烯气体泄漏进行了全面的调查研究，特别强调了安全壳损失的概率风险分析。进行了危害认知研究，以了解散装苯乙烯储存设施中可能存在的危险情况，以防止此类灾难性再次发生。能量屏障分析是为了研究事故案例研究中主动和被动屏障的不足之处。该分析还考虑了因 COVID-19 封锁的极端情况而导致的升级因素。由于自 Bhopal Gas Tragedy (1984) 以来安全工程和损失预防方面的进步，导致有毒苯乙烯分散的自聚合反应是可以预防的。根据调查分析，