Worker injured in flash fire at California Amgen facility
A worker at an Amgen research facility in South San Francisco has been hospitalized after a "flash fire" involving hazardous materials. "There was a flash fire at the research facility there," spokeswoman Ashleigh Koss said. "There was an incident with a flammable liquid." There was no report on the worker's condition.   According to the San Mateo County Times, the worker was collecting hazardous materials when the fire ignited. It said he worked for a waste disposal and cleanup company. Koss said the fire department was called and the facility was temporarily evacuated. Fires and explosions at pharma manufacturing facilities are not unusual, while...

China mine explosion kills 28
An explosion killed at least 28 workers at the Taozigou mine in Luxian County, Sichuan Province, with a further 16 taken to hospital with injuries of whom three are in a critical condition. According to local Chinese media, 81 miners were rescued from the blast. According to Xinhua, the mining operation was illegal....

Five killed in South Korea steel plant incident
Yonhap says five workers suffocated to death on May 10 at a steel plant in Dangjin after gas leaked from a furnace. The workers, employed by a subcontractor of Hyundai Steel Co., were found dead inside the 8-metre-deep rotating furnace in Dangjin, some 123 kilometers south of Seoul, after argon gas leaked from the furnace, according to local authorities....

Learning from the transformation of US commercial nuclear power
Mary Jo Rogers, a nuclear safety consultant at Strategic Talent Solutions, looks at how the nuclear industry become safer, more reliable and more profitable while under such heavy scrutiny and regulation, and what other industries can learn from this transformation. 

IECEx certification for multi-component integrated products
Specialist Services Group (SSG), an engineering and manufacturing company providing modular buildings to the oil & gas industry for both onshore and offshore applications, has announced that it has successfully achieved IECEx Certification for its Zone 1 purged and pressurised building product line.

New handbook for process industry functional safety
“Process Safebook 1 – Functional Safety in the Process Industry” has been published by Rockwell Automation to provide its customers with an overview of functional safety and guidance in the application of IEC61511, the process industry specific implementation of IEC61508.

Germany's clean energy plans founder on dirty coal
Germany's planned transition to green energy has taken a knock with the announcement in late April that coal-fired plants produced 6% more power in 2012. Most of the coal burned in German power stations is lignite, or brown coal, a dirty and heavily polluting fuel source. Industry association Debriv also said the country mined 5.1% more brown coal in 2012 than in the previous year.