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Friday, April 4, 2025

Relatives want fair probe into divers' deaths

…say ‘Don't re­peat the mis­takes of the 1985 ex­plo­sion’

by

RADHICA DE SILVA
1128 days ago
20220302
Memorials for some of the deceased in the 1985 explosion.

Memorials for some of the deceased in the 1985 explosion.

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA
rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

 

On the fate­ful day of 17th Oc­to­ber 1985, the charred corpses of two off­shore work­ers were dis­cov­ered in the bath­room of Berth No. 5, their arms around each oth­er in an ap­par­ent em­brace be­fore flames con­sumed their bod­ies.

They were among 14 work­ers killed when an ex­plo­sion oc­curred on Sealine 33 at Berth No 5 in Trin­toc's Pointe-a-Pierre har­bour at 12:35 pm.

An aux­il­iary barge and a pile dri­ver barge At­las and a launch were all de­stroyed in the oil fire.

And like present-day, a gov­ern­ment-ap­point­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tion was launched af­ter the ex­plo­sion, which was deemed the worst in­dus­tri­al ac­ci­dent in T&T's 100-year-old oil in­dus­try his­to­ry.

 

The 1985 ac­ci­dent re­port find­ings

 

The eight-mem­ber in­ves­ti­gat­ing team was set up by the then Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and Nat­ur­al Re­sources Patrick Man­ning and was head­ed by Spe­cial Ad­vi­sor to Min­is­ter Hugh Hinds.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­vealed there were "non-ob­ser­vance of stan­dard safe­ty pro­ce­dures, lack of plan­ning, co­or­di­na­tion and prop­er su­per­vi­sion with­in the var­i­ous de­part­ments in­volved in the re­moval of ship blanks."

It al­so said “Sealine 33 was not suit­ably pre­pared for the op­er­a­tion planned.”

De­spite these wide­ly pub­li­cized find­ings, no one was ever charged with crim­i­nal neg­li­gence and years af­ter the tragedy, there con­tin­ued to be protests from the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU) whose then Branch Sec­re­tary Frank Dray­ton wrote ex­ten­sive­ly in the OW­TU's Van­guard call­ing for safe work­ing con­di­tions for work­ers.

A programme for a Memorial Service organised by the OWTU for the deceased in the 1985 explosion.

A programme for a Memorial Service organised by the OWTU for the deceased in the 1985 explosion.

The chil­dren of the dead work­ers suf­fered, ac­cord­ing to an ar­ti­cle pub­lished in a Bomb news­pa­per ed­i­to­r­i­al ti­tled Trin­toc Hor­ror, dat­ed 3rd April 1987.

It said ev­i­dence tak­en from 34 peo­ple con­clud­ed that the ex­plo­sion was trig­gered by flash ig­ni­tion of liq­uid hy­dro­car­bon, which es­caped from the open flange of Sealine 33.

The 14 vic­tims who lost their lives, nev­er knew the line they were work­ing on was in ser­vice and had thou­sands of bar­rels of Al­ger­ian con­den­sate.

The ar­ti­cle said steps had not been tak­en to en­sure that it was safe to re­move the ship blank from Sealine 33, "be­cause the line was not iso­lat­ed from in­ter-con­nect­ing sys­tems."

It al­so not­ed that the Pile dri­ver Barge At­las was not up­wind of the work­place in ac­cor­dance with es­tab­lished com­pa­ny prac­tice.  A fur­ther mis­step oc­curred when at­tempts were not made to de­pres­sur­ize and bleed the line or to check any pres­sure gauge pro­vid­ed, which was against stan­dard pro­ce­dures.

 

A sense of de­ja-vu

 

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Haf­feza Kur­ban-Hy­atali, whose fa­ther Ramjohn Kur­ban was killed in the ex­plo­sion, re­called how no­body was charged for crim­i­nal neg­li­gence back then, even though the find­ings of the re­port showed se­ri­ous breach­es.

She is hop­ing there will not be a re­peat of this when an in­ves­ti­ga­tion is com­plet­ed in­to the Feb­ru­ary 25th in­ci­dent at the No 6 Berth seabed pipeline which killed her broth­er Fyzal Kur­ban and three oth­er divers—Yusuff Hen­ry, Kaz­im Ali Jr and Rishi Nages­sar.

"I re­mem­ber that day as if it was yes­ter­day, when our fa­ther Ramjohn was killed when the ship ex­plod­ed. Now my broth­er is gone. This is a tragedy that should not have hap­pened," Haf­feza said.

Haffeza Kurban-Hyatali is hugged by her niece, Fariah Hyatali.

Haffeza Kurban-Hyatali is hugged by her niece, Fariah Hyatali.

Re­call­ing the day her fa­ther died, Haf­feza said:

"I re­mem­ber when dad left for work.  Just af­ter lunchtime, we were ly­ing down and my broth­er Fyzal came run­ning and he called out and say, ‘Mam­ma! The ship was on fire and pap­py died’."

She said her fa­ther had planned on go­ing to Frankie's Dri­ve-In Hard­ware for some red paint to paint their steps. They lived at the Tex­a­co Hous­ing scheme at the time. Fyzal left with their moth­er and lat­er on, when news con­firmed that the 14 men were dead, the OW­TU's blue shirt army came out in vast num­bers at the Pointe-a-Pierre Round­about to call for safer work­ing con­di­tions.

De­spite his fa­ther's hor­rif­ic death, Fyzal went on to be­come one of T&T's best-cer­ti­fied com­mer­cial divers who died a hero, hav­ing giv­en his life to save the lone sur­vivor, Christo­pher Boodram, from the Feb­ru­ary 25th tragedy.

 

In­dus­try ex­pert says pro­to­cols were es­tab­lished af­ter 1985

 

Mean­while, the for­mer su­per­in­ten­dent of Petrotrin Area West Vish­nu Ram­jat­tan who was in charge of Berth No. 5 and Berth No. 6 where both the 1985 and the 2022 tragedies oc­curred, said he too hoped that prop­er pro­to­cols will re­main in place to safe­guard lives.

He al­so con­firmed that af­ter the 1985 tragedy, no one was charged with crim­i­nal neg­li­gence.

"Peo­ple got moved around the de­part­ment but no­body was ever charged," he said.

Many of the fam­i­lies nev­er re­ceived fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance from Trin­toc.

Industry expert, Vishnu Ramjattan.

Industry expert, Vishnu Ramjattan.

He said new pro­to­cols came in­to ef­fect.

"The first thing they did was the re­moval of the flange. Any­where they had a flange, they put bleed stubs to bleed the line from the top and bot­tom. In some cas­es, they put a slip blank so the line could be bled ap­pro­pri­ate­ly. If the line is pres­sur­ized it would not bend or break. They made sure that fire ex­tin­guish­ers and wa­ter hoses were on stand­by. They stip­u­lat­ed that there should be a launch on stand­by. And that there should be a barge on stand­by as well," he re­vealed.

Ram­jat­tan said he, too, want­ed a fair and thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

 

Those who died in 1985

 

1- Ramjohn Kur­ban, 38, Plai­sance Park.

2- Ram­lal Gan­goo, 35, Soledad Road,

3- Hy­dar Karim, 39, Pi­paro.

4-  Hen­ry Nathan, 39, Gas­par­il­lo.

5- Roop­nar­ine Ma­hase, 47, Co­coyea Vil­lage.

 6- Steve Fran­cis Jules, 40, Co­coyea Vil­lage

7- Ernest Bisses­sar, 42, Mara­bel­la

8- Frank Mo­hammed 47, La Ro­maine

9- Frank Mathu­ra, 50, Clax­ton Bay

10- Vish­nu Gob­ins­ingh, 38, Clax­ton Bay

11- Carv­er Mar­tin, 36, San Fer­nan­do

12- Frank Mitchell, 38, Sixth Com­pa­ny Vil­lage

13- Trevor Cuffy, 40, Clax­ton Bay.

14- Boodram Brid­ge­nanan, 38, Clax­ton Bay

accidentParia Fuel Trading CompanyEnergyPetrotrinInvestigation


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