The Shenyang Chemical Co had an unexpected test of its earthquake response, on Jan 23, when a 5.1-magnitude quake hit an area between the cities of Shenyang and Liaoyang, disrupting telecommunications and forcing some enterprises to suspend production.
But Shenyang Chemical’s emergency response measures helped keep its devices and facilities in continued, safe and stable operation.
When the quake struck around 12:00 noon, many workers were having their lunch, but, thanks to their routine drills for coping with emergencies, they remained calm and didn’t panic and immediately took steps to guarantee safe, stable operations and prevent accidents and further disasters.
Company executives immediately contacted production control to check on the production conditions, and employees carefully followed the emergency plan and returned to their work while preparing to deal with the disaster’s aftermath.
Production team leaders and on-duty team leaders at the chlor-alkali plant rushed to the chlorine compressor and electrolysis control room to monitor operations, while various emergency and rescue materials were quickly put in place. The polyvinylchloride plant immediately lowered the levels of the polyvinylchloride tanks with a capacity above 1,000 cubic meters to cut risks and the polymerization terminator was moved to the polymerization tank so that polymerization could be terminated in case of an emergency. At the same time, manual emergency operation tools were activated and manual and automatic systems were used simultaneously to control the production process.
In the end, the earthquake did not lead to disaster for the company, but provided an effectively test of the ability and qualifications of Shenyang Chemical’s employees in coping with a real emergency.