Battery factory malfunction: what made the workers sick if no dangerous substance was detected?

On Easter Sunday, there was a malfunction in the battery factory in Komárom, a pungent smell spread, several workers fell ill and complained of headaches. Everyone was taken out to the yard, eight workers were taken away by the ambulance. The police and emergency services were also outside. The mobile laboratory of the disaster management carried out measurements in the area of ​​the plant, but no dangerous substance above the limit value was detected. The air also contained hydrogen cyanide and nitrogen dioxide, but both were well below the limit.

On April 2, the company issued a statement confirming that eight people had been taken to the hospital for headaches, but since they did not show any “unusual symptoms” they were discharged. They also emphasized that the measurement results of the disaster management confirmed that no dangerous substance above the limit value was detected.

But then I wonder what made the workers sick if no dangerous substance above the limit was detected?

The police received a report at 7:19 p.m

The Komárom-Esztergom County Police Headquarters wrote to us that on March 31 at 7:19 p.m. they received a report about a leak. Their employees went out to the factory, but their intervention was not necessary.

The National Ambulance Service wrote to our newspaper that eight people were taken to the hospital with headaches and nausea – due to suspected poisoning – in a stable condition. We asked what happened to them, but they said: after being transported to the hospital, they no longer have information about the condition of the patients. The Petz Aladár University Teaching Hospital of Győr-Moson-Sopron County replied to our paper that five people were brought in from the factory, and two arrived themselves. Hospital admission was not necessary during the care of the seven patients. There was no response from the Szent Borbála Hospital in Tatabánya until the publication of our article.

In response, the Komárom-Esztergom County Disaster Management Directorate sent a link, and in their announcement they also wrote that no dangerous substance above the limit value was detected. From the table summarizing their investigations, it was revealed, among other things, that disaster management

• performed measurements at 20:59 and 22:25 at 20:59 and 22:25 with the instruments installed on the vehicle – the dangerous gas concentration was zero everywhere at that time,
• and measured with his hand tools between 21:12 and 00:48 – some rows and columns show values ​​higher than zero for various hazardous substances, but the highest value is only 1.00 ppm.

Values ​​between 0 and 0.4 ppm of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) were detected in the various rooms – according to the relevant regulation, the permissible general concentration value is 0.5 ppm, and that of the peak concentration is 1 ppm. In other words, the concentration of nitrogen dioxide was certainly below six values ​​at the time of measurement.

For hydrogen cyanide (HCN), values ​​between 0 and 1.00 ppm are given in the table. And the legislation says that the permissible average concentration in workplace air is 0.9 ppm, and the peak value can be 4.5 ppm. According to them, 0.9 ppm is just below the generally permissible limit value, and 1.00 ppm is already sticking out by a hair, but all of them are below the maximum permissible value.

In the disaster prevention table, the ERPG2 value is indicated as an alignment point (reference value), which shows the maximum concentration that does not cause permanent health damage in less than one hour. The ERPG2 value for NO2 (15ppm) and HCN (10ppm) is much higher than what was measured. For your information, it was also written that the gas concentration measurements carried out by the disaster management support on-site decision-making related to the damage event, in order to determine the necessary protective equipment, the protective distance and the population protection measures. Also, these measurements do not replace the accredited measurements of competent partner authorities.

As for the time, based on the information received by our paper, it can be determined that

• while the police received the signal from the factory at 19:19,
• the disaster management did not start measuring with hand tools until 21:12.

It occurred to us whether the dangerous gases could not have evaporated in the almost two hours that had passed (especially with the ventilation). After all, we also ventilate at home to change the air. We therefore asked the disaster management when they were alerted, and we inquired whether there had been hydrogen cyanide, nitrogen dioxide (or other dangerous substances) in the air in concentrations above the limit value in the examined rooms in the afternoon, when the workers fell ill – or around seven in the evening, when they called the police – then could the instruments of the disaster management have detected it after a quarter to ten in the evening, when they carried out their investigations. The authority did not respond to our inquiry.

According to SK On, the workers made a mistake

Among other things, we asked SK On, the operator of the factory, what led to the malfunction. They said some sealing components were damaged when changing the gears of the mixer in the electrode process, and there was a problem when adding the lubricant where the workers (mistakenly) used a different product than the existing lubricant. We didn’t understand how to use another one instead of the existing lubricant, we asked back, and SK On repeated:

a personnel error has occurred.

The same product should have been used on the equipment as before, but the operator accidentally used the wrong lubricant for the machine (not the one for the particular equipment). The lubricant used is different for each equipment and drive component. Depending on the specifications of each equipment, a lubricant with a different viscosity must be used, which is why there are several types. The employee made a mistake when he used the wrong one.

According to the company, it is the result of this

workers working near the equipment complained of headaches due to the smell of oil,

on March 31, i.e. Sunday afternoon, which was also reported to the competent authorities. In other words, the problem started in the afternoon, but the report came to the police after a quarter past eight in the evening.

It was also written that there are no raw materials containing hydrogen cyanide in the electrode manufacturing process. Nevertheless, to prevent the incident from happening again, a professional organization was asked to determine whether the lubricant used contained HCN. We asked if, according to them, the composition of the used lubricant was not known – we received the answer: there are several accredited professional organizations that carry out sampling and analysis of fats and lubricants. They also explained that during the measurements, their company and the relevant authorities use different types of detectors, so even very small amounts of different substances can be detected. As it was written, during the on-site inspection, a very small amount of hydrogen cyanide, below the legal limit, was detected, but the competent authorities have repeatedly confirmed that the detection of this substance is not related to the leakage of dangerous substances. Referring to the competent authority that carried out the on-site inspections, they stated that the term “HCN leak” was also not considered appropriate, since hydrogen cyanide was detected in extremely small quantities, which were well below the limit value.

What happened to the workers?

According to the factory, a total of 13 people complained of headache symptoms, and although no abnormality was found in any of them after the first examination by the company doctor, eight of them voluntarily requested a hospital examination. After the examination at the hospital, all eight people were discharged, as the examination there did not reveal any abnormalities in any of the workers.

They added that since there were workers who had to be taken to the hospital, the relevant authorities were immediately notified. We asked if this means that the authorities should only be called if the workers request a hospital examination. It turned out that they didn’t mean it that way, they report all minor cases to the competent authorities, such as the current one, where no personal injury occurred. They added that they consider the health and safety of their employees to be of the utmost importance, and they support those employees who want to request a hospital examination even if, in the opinion of the company doctor, everything is fine.

In their reply, they wrote that after notifying the authorities, they evacuated the factory, sent all workers outside the factory, and then ventilated the affected room. After that, SK On’s own in-house organization, the SHE (Safety Health Environment) team, carried out measurements with different types of gas detectors in the area where all this happened, but the signaling devices did not show any unusual results, so the workers could return to their work.

We asked again: do we understand correctly that you did the SHE gas measurements only after the ventilation? They answered that this was not the case, since after the problem was reported (the workers fell ill in the afternoon), the SHE team immediately measured the gas concentration, and after the evacuation, they measured it again to make sure that they could safely let the workers back into the into the room. Part of the protocol is that workers are only allowed back if the work is safe based on SHE measurements.

We also inquired about how long the ventilation lasted before the workers could return to their workplaces. They wrote that the ventilation usually takes three hours, but on Easter Sunday they double-checked whether their employees could safely return to work, so

in the end, a total of 6–8 hours were allocated to ventilating the room.

So when the disaster management took measurements between 20:59 and 00:48 and did not detect dangerous substances above the limit value, the ventilation could already be in full swing. The disaster management did not answer whether a dangerous substance can be detected under these conditions.