Stars and Singaporean Chua Xing Da, 42, were each convicted<\/span><\/a> on May 26 of two charges under the Workplace Safety and Health Act (WSHA) over safety lapses.<\/p>\nChua was the sole director of Stars and oversaw the worksite\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n
He and the company failed to ensure the mixer machine was safe to use.<\/p>\n
They also failed to ensure their employees had received adequate training and supervision to operate the equipment.<\/p>\n
In giving his verdict, District Judge Tan Jen Tse said more could have been done to ensure the safe use of the machine.<\/p>\n
He also said Chua and Stars failed to take measures to ensure that it was used properly.<\/p>\n
Myanmar national Lwin Moe Tun, 36, who was a project engineer at Stars, was acquitted of a charge under the WSHA.<\/p>\n
He had been accused of negligently doing an act that endangered employees\u2019 safety by allowing them to repair the mixer machine\u2019s damaged heater.<\/p>\n
The judge said there was not enough evidence that Lwin Moe Tun allowed repairs to the machine.<\/p>\n
But Judge Tan convicted him of two obstruction of justice charges after he deleted messages between himself and Mr Subbaiyan after the incident.<\/p>\n
Court documents stated that Lwin Moe Tun had removed them from mobile phones belonging to himself and Mr Subbaiyan.<\/p>\n
Chua was convicted of instigating him to delete the messages.<\/p>\n
In earlier proceedings, the court heard that Chua and Lwin Moe Tun oversaw the production of fire-retardant wraps at the worksite.<\/p>\n
These wraps comprised an aluminium sheet\u00a0exterior and were made of various layers, including a clay-like lining that\u00a0Stars called \u201cfire clay\u201d.<\/p>\n
Deputy public prosecutors Timotheus Koh, Grace Chua and Mohamed Riasudeen stated in court documents that fire clay was manufactured at the worksite using a mixer machine that Stars\u00a0purchased in August 2019.<\/p>\n\n\nThe back wall of a unit in an industrial building in Tuas that was damaged by an explosion on Feb 24, 2021.<\/p>\n
PHOTO: ST FILE<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
It was installed at the worksite\u00a0in June 2020.<\/p>\n
The mixer machine had an oil jacket meant to\u00a0contain \u201cheat transfer fluid\u201d and transfer heat from built-in heaters to the\u00a0contents of the machine\u2019s mixing chamber.<\/p>\n
The machine came with two resistance temperature detectors (RTDs).<\/p>\n
The prosecutors said that under Chua\u2019s direction, the mixer machine was operated with insufficient oil, causing overheating and over-pressure within its oil jacket.<\/p>\n
The RTDs were also not used properly, with no proper temperature control or monitoring within the oil jacket.<\/p>\n
This resulted in the jacket rupturing, leading to the release of pressurised oil out of it and forming a liquid aerosol that was ignited, resulting in the explosion.<\/p>\n
An inquiry into the blast found that the initial rupture of the oil jacket resulted in the explosion, and subsequent flash fires were most likely caused by the combustion of potato starch powders that accumulated at the work site.<\/p>\n
The prosecution argued that Chua knew the mixer machine was not safe to use, especially after several \u201cred flag\u201d incidents.<\/p>\n
In August 2020, a spark and smoke were seen around the machine\u2019s heaters, and the oil jacket leaked later that year.<\/p>\n
In February 2021, a fire occurred near a drain valve at the bottom of the oil jacket.<\/p>\n
The DPPs told the court: \u201cInstead of investigating and addressing the root cause of \u2018red flag\u2019 incidents, Chua chose to adopt a… poorly informed approach in response to (them), which resulted in the unsafe operation of the mixer machine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\nA fire investigation team at the site in Tuas that was damaged by an explosion, on Feb 25, 2021.<\/p>\n
PHOTO: ST FILE<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
During the trial, Chua said he did not think the incidents such as the fire and the leakage were red flags.<\/p>\n
As to the obstruction of justice charges after the explosion, the prosecutors said Chua knew that Lwin Moe Tun had Mr Subbaiyan\u2019s phone.<\/p>\n
And there were messages between Lwin Moe Tun and Mr Subbaiyan about the unsafe changing of a faulty heater on the device.<\/p>\n
Court documents stated these communications would be relevant to the investigations.<\/p>\n
Yet, Chua told Lwin Moe Tun it was \u201cok\u201d to delete these messages from the Myanmar national\u2019s phone.<\/p>\n
The prosecution argued that Lwin Moe Tun admitted he had deleted messages from his phone and from Mr Subbaiyan\u2019s as he did not want to be involved in the investigations.<\/p>\n
Lawyer Foo Cheow Ming represents Lwin Moe Tun, while Mr Chia Boon Teck represents Chua and Stars.<\/p>\n
The mitigation and sentencing for the three offenders will be held on June 25.<\/p>\n\n
Read Full Article At Source <\/a>SINGAPORE – A company involved in the installation of fire protection systems and one man linked to it were convicted over safety lapses that caused…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/55613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}