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| Home > Publications and press releases > Reports of Marine Department > Reports & Statistics | ||||||||
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| A sailor was electrocuted while handling a portable electric submersible pump on board the dumb steel lighter "WAH LIN" in Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter on 24 March 2002 | ||||||||
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| 1. The Incident
1.1 At about 1045 hours on 24 March 2002, a sailor was electrocuted while handling a portable electric submersible pump in pumping out cargo hold bilge on board the dumb steel lighter "WAH LIN", Local Licence No. 21662V, which was moored near the middle fairway in Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter. The weather condition on the day of the incident was rainy. The sailor was sent to Kwong Wah Hospital and later certified death in the hospital. 1.2 In the incident, the sailor took out a portable electric pump from the accommodation to pump out the bilge in the cargo hold. As the electrical cable for the pump was not long enough to reach the bottom of the cargo hold, the sailor, who had no evidence of having received any electrical training, extended it by adding an additional length of cable. During the subsequent bilge pumping operation, the sailor while handling the pump received an electric shock. 2. Findings 2.1 The original length of the cable was found to have been extended by an added portion which was connected to the original cable by two joints. The conductors of individual cores of the cable at both the joints were connected simply by twisting and the joints were wrapped with adhesive insulating tapes. 2.2 The color coding of the core wirings of the added cable were different from those of the original cable as illustrated in Fig. 1. The 3 core wirings of the added cable were found to be brown (live), blue (neutral) and yellow/green (earth) color coding whereas those of the original cable were of red (live), white (neutral) and green (earth) color coding. The core wirings of the added length of cable were found incorrectly connected to the core wirings of the original cable as illustrated in Fig. 1. Because of the wrongly connected core wirings of the added cable, the live (red) line of the electricity supply at the plug end was caused to have connected to the casing of the pump, whilst the neutral (white) and earth (green) lines were connected to the motor windings. A summary for the overall cable from the plug to the pump is shown in Table 1 below:
With this cable connection, the pump case will become live when electricity is supplied via the plug. A person will receive an electric shock when he touches the lived pump case and an earthed part of the same supply system simultaneously. 2.3 The most probable cause of the accident is incorrect wiring connection of the added cable. Prior to the incident, the sailor, in performing the cable extension work for the portable submersible pump, had connected the electrical wirings incorrectly. This made the pump case becoming lived when electricity was supplied via the plug. Subsequently, while handling the pump in the cargo hold in pumping of bilge and with a wet working environment, the deceased received an electric shock. 3. The Lessons 3.1 Important lessons should be learnt from this incident :-
Figure 1: Different color coding of the core wirings between the added cable and the original cable |
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