The explosion that injured six men who were removing parts from a ship on the Port-of-Spain port was not the first technical problem the workers encountered. Yesterday T&T Guardian visited the Port-of-Spain General Hospital during visiting hours where four men are warded.
Wilton Nicholas, the supervisor of the injured workmen, was at the hospital to see how the men were doing. He said on Sunday the workers were sent home due to technical difficulties with under-performing extractor fans. “Sunday we came out to work but we could not work because it was unsafe. It did not have any blowers. Something with the power supply was not working properly so we had to leave the work and we came back out yesterday (Wednesday) to start up the work,” Nicholas said.
The six injured workers were employed with Maritime Preservation Shipping Yard where they were hired to remove two silos on the port and starboard side in the bow. Nicholas said last year they were hired to dismantle the entire ship but that job was cancelled. Two of the injured men—Keith Matthews and Junior St Louis—were warded in Ward 43 of the hospital. They received burns about their body. St Louis suffered burns on his face. Matthews was burnt on his arms, neck and back.
The other victims are Cyril Robinson, Josiah Glasgow, Anthony Hospedales and Junior St Louis. Robinson remains in the Intensive Care Unit while Glasgow was discharged. Mathews said yesterday doctors would check his arms to see if he needed any skin grafts. After the explosions, Matthews said, men from the work site took some of the injured men in a truck to the hospital.
“I just heard boom and that was it. I cannot say I saw or smelt anything. I hope that we get compensated. It is horrible. I think it is negligence on the company’s part. We started the job a couple days before. We had issues and we corrected it,” he said. Their job, which started last week Friday, he said, was to remove the silos which were large storage tanks. Nicholas said the silo previously contained water as the ship was a storage vessel.
“Our job was to take the silo out, put it in the land and they would take it from there. Taking out the silo would take about three to four days. We had six extractors which were doing the job fine, pulling out the smoke and letting in fresh air, fine,” Nicholas said. He said on Wednesday the extractor fans were working fine and he had no idea why there would have been an explosion.
“The fellas and I were doing the job we were working comfortable. I don’t know what it was... we were working fine. I would like to know what is going on,” he said. Recounting the events that led up to the explosion, Nicholas said he wanted to view all of the reports to understand what happened to his workers. Nicholas said he was liaising with the health and safety officer and other officials in the company during the investigation.
When asked if he had an idea what caused the explosion, he said he was not an expert in the matter and could not answer that question. However, he added that previous reports in the media that it was another gas explosion were speculative.