Shipyard accident leaves 8 dead

We are appalled, but not surprised.

Eight people were burned to death on July 24th after an explosion in the Perama Shipbuilding Zone (PSZ). Maintenance works on the ship Friendship Gas were under way at the time. The ship is under Panamanian flag and belongs to Greek shipowner Mr Petridis.

Shipbuilding accidents are hardly news. Last year, two people caught on fire in the PSZ and in 2006 there were another two victims. The reason for the accidents is simple. Cutting back on health and safety procedure is one of the things that keeps the shipping industry in Greece competitive.

The fire fighters that were first on the scene were untrained to deal with ship fires and lost time, possibly costing the lives of 3 people who were reported missing at the time.

The local government is blaming central government since 2006 for cancelling a law that required that all companies doing maintenance works be registered. The Registry would require higher standards and effective monitoring of health and safety procedures. But in the shrine of national competitiveness in one of the biggest shipyards in the country, safety was not a priority

Witnesses working on the ship say that there was also a fire the day before, which they themselves managed to put out. The management did not report the fire to the authorities in order to avoid ‘unnecessary’ hassle and delays.

At the time of the fire more than 50 people were on-board. Safety regulations were not in place and therefore some of them were not even registered, which could mean that they would be declared missing if an accident was to take place.

Employees assigned to safety duties were arrested. Politicians, company owners and management were not!

Human Error

A ferry crashed into charted reefs in the Aegean sea, again.

Unlike the last two Greek ferries that crashed and caused severe casualties, no-one was injured this time round.

Is this is a sign that some ship-owners are learning from the past mistakes and training their ship staff better? Or was this pure luck that the ship did not sink and therefore there were no fatalities?

Unlike other countries that get hit by natural disasters, we manage to make it a mess on our own, without needing to involve mother nature.

So with no tsunamis, no tornadoes and only but a few earthquakes, we manage to damage our tourism with old ferries and “Human Error”, the number one factor that we get to blame in all accidents.

I wonder: Is the anonymous “human error” excuse still valid for messing things up in other European countries? Or do people actually take responsibility for their actions and the actions of their subordinates?

I mean, surely, in this age of technology, wouldn’t it really make more sense to invest in more automated systems in the transportation industry, so that we rely less in the human factor, since it’s so error-prone?