Mitsubishi Materials Corporation

News

February 5, 2014

Report Number 3; Explosion and Fire at Yokkaichi Plant

An explosion and fire occurred on 9th January, 2014 at Mitsubishi Materials' Yokkaichi Plant. We offer our profound apologies for this disaster. We mourn the loss of lives by this accident and offer our sincere condolences to the bereaved families. We also extend our sincerest apologies to the people who were injured, as well as members of the local community, related authorities, customers and shareholders for the resulting inconvenience.
Currently available information as of February 5th is as follows;
(additional information indicated with underlines)

  1. Address and facilities involved in the accident:
    Mitsubishi Materials Corporation / Yokkaichi Plant,
    5 Mita-cho, Yokkaichi-shi, Mie Prefecture, Japan
  2. Time and date of the accident:
    Explosion and Fire occurred; 14:05, January 9th (Thursday), 2014
    Fire extinguished; 14:21, January 9th (Thursday), 2014
  3. Background:
    A heat exchanger used in hydrogen recycle process had been dismantled from production line for cleaning. The explosion occurred when the lid was removed from the body of the equipment following pretreatment at a designated washing area.
  4. Casualties/Injured:
    5 dead (3 Mitsubishi Materials' employees and 2 subcontractors)
    13 injured (we reported 12 in the Report No.2)
    [10 Mitsubishi Materials' employees, 3 subcontractors (we reported 2 in the Report No.2)
    • One subcontractor felt a pain after the accident and had started to receive medical attention.
    • The last Mitsubishi Materials' employee who was hospitalized had been out of of hospital and recovering day by day.
  5. Impact of the accident:
    The above mentioned heat exchanger was damaged in the explosion.
    There were no major damages on other surrounding equipment.
  6. Cause of the accident and countermeasures:
    • The cause of the accident is under investigation by the relevant authorities; we are fully cooperating with their activities.
    • On 17th January 2014, we established a committee with the members from the academia and external specialists, to investigate causes of the explosion and fire accident at Yokkaichi Plant. The first meeting was held on 22nd January 2014 at Yokkaichi Plant, and Dr. MASAMITSU TAMURA, Emeritus Processor of The University of Tokyo was elected as the chairman of this committee.
  7. Plant operation status:
    Yokkaichi Plant operation is still suspended for safety checking.

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