Phases of Tianjin Port Explosion Emergency Management Process

To prevent or to reduce the effects of Tianjin Port explosion, emergency management process should be followed by all the organizations. Emergency management process needs to be considered in the explosion and fire accident attack at Tianjin Port, China. Emergency management is the managerial function charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters.

This process consists of four phases which are the preparedness phase, response phase, recovery phase, and mitigation phase. The preparedness phase includes developing plans for things to do, the place to go, or someone to call for help before an event occurs or actions that will improve the chances of successfully dealing with an emergency. Recent data suggest that the number of victims was nearly 200, which included firefighters (Wang & Wu, 2016).

This shows that the disaster was quite huge. The lack of preparedness phase might be the cause of the disaster to affect a lot of victims and huge loss such as at Tianjin, China. Some examples of the preparation that should be done before an emergency occurs are posting emergency telephone numbers, holding disaster drills, and installing smart smoke or heat detectors are all preparedness measures. Posting emergency telephone numbers in the building will make people easier and faster to call a suitable department based on the type of emergencies. Holding disaster drills will reduce the number of victims because by holding the disaster drill, people will know the safe route to go to a safe place when the emergency happens.

Smart smoke detectors use the latest technology to detect the presence of smoke using photoelectric smoke-sensing technology. Their ultra-sensitivity prevents false alarms. In addition to sense smoke, they also have heat sensors that detect rapid rises in heat that come from a fire, even when there is no smoke. So, this will prevent the fire from spreading. Hence, the preparedness phase is important to prevent the disaster such as at Tianjin Port, China because the preparedness phase includes plans or preparations made to save lives and to help response and rescue operations.

The second phase is the response phase. Response phase includes actions taken to save lives and minimize property damage in an emergency situation. Response phase is putting the preparedness plans into action. For the Tianjin, China incident, the bigger explosion happened because the first responders that went to address the fire at first fought the flames with water. The water made things worse because the chemicals present in the warehouse were combustible when in contact with water. So, the response in the incident of Tianjin explosions was bad because the first action made the thing became worse.

The first responders didn’t know what chemicals they were dealing with while putting out the fire. This is might be the lack of preparation for the emergency such as doing hazard or risk analysis for the chemicals so that the first responders know about the chemicals that they were dealing with. For the treatment response, there were a lot of hospitals involved to help the victims such as Tianjin Medical University Hospital, TEDA International Cardiovascular Hospital, and the Fifth Center Hospital.

After receiving notification from Tianjin Health and Family Planning Commission concerning the rescue work, Tianjin Medical University Hospital launched the emergency plan. They had sent a rescue team comprised of experts with the on-site rescue work. There was a lot of material preparation. Emergency supplies like wheelchair and flatcar, debridement and suture packages, and blood resource from Tianjin Blood Center were urgently deployed (X.X.Guo et. al. 2015). So, for the response towards treatment, there was a lot of hospitals that involved to minimize the effect of the explosion towards victims. Hence, the response phase in Tianjin Port towards the fire and explosion is bad because the response causes bigger explosion while the treatment response to the victims is good because a lot of hospitals sent rescue teams to help the victims as soon as possible.

The third phase is the recovery phase. Recovery phase includes actions taken to return to a normal or an even safer situation following an emergency. During the recovery phase in the Tianjin Port, China, A massive clean-up of contaminated water is underway in the aftermath of the August. The crater left behind by the explosion filled with 40 000 tons of highly contaminated water that authorities now have to contain and dispose of safely. Cleaning work for the contaminated water should be done by the person who has qualified to handle the hazardous material because this contaminated area consists of high levels of dangerous chemicals. This contaminated area is to be cleaned up immediately using the proper procedure and proper personal protective equipment should be worn by the cleaners to reduce the effects of chemicals such as sodium cyanide towards them.

The Aug. 12 explosion occurred at a warehouse containing 40 types of chemicals, including 700 tons of highly toxic substances, mostly sodium cyanide, according to reports from state media. Sodium cyanide releases hydrogen cyanide gas, a highly toxic chemical asphyxiant that interferes with the body’s ability to use oxygen. Exposure to sodium cyanide can be rapidly fatal. Recovery phase also includes getting financial assistance to help pay for the repairs. Contamination from chemicals is likely to increase the cost to insurers of last month’s blasts in the Chinese port of Tianjin, costs which are already expected to exceed $3 billion. Chinese insurers are likely to bear the brunt, global insurers and reinsurers are also expected to set aside reserves for the quarter ending in September to cover any payouts for the Aug. 12 explosions (L.Jason, 2015). So, for the recovery phase at Tianjin Port was more to clean up the contamination and the cost to repair all the things.

The last phase is mitigation phase. Mitigation phase includes any ongoing activities that prevent an emergency, reduce the chance of an emergency happening, or reduce the damaging effects of unavoidable emergencies. Mitigation phase takes place before and after the emergency. Some examples of mitigation activities that could be done in Tianjin Port are hazard identification of chemicals, risk assessments, and research about the explosion.

Risk assessment and hazard identification are related to each other. To make a risk assessment, hazard identification must be found first. Hazard identification is part of the process used to evaluate if any particular situation, item, thing, etc. may have the potential to cause harm. The term often used to describe the full process is risk assessment. Risk assessment can help an organization improve its security in a number of ways.

Depending on the type and extent of the risk assessment, organizations can use the results to help increase their safety management. The research about the explosion can be done after the explosion happened. The research can be included the cause of the incident and the effect on human and properties. By doing this research, organizations can make preparation to prevent this kind of incident to happen for the second times. This shows that the preparedness phase can come after the mitigation phase. From the study, this management emergency process can be a way to prevent or reduce the incident that causes a great loss.