According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, chemical spills are particularly common in industrial provinces with a large number of companies that produce, use and trade chemicals.

DIFFICULTY OF IMPLEMENTATION 4 AT LOCATIONS

Given the properties of many toxic and hazardous chemicals, which are highly oxidizing, corrosive, flammable, acutely toxic, harmful to the environment, etc., fire and explosion are very dangerous when there is leakage and spillage.

According to statistics, the amount of chemicals used in Vietnam is concentrated in factories in big cities like Hanoi, Hai Phong, Ho Chi Minh City and provinces with many industrial parks.

In addition to products that can be seen in many areas of agriculture, pharmacy, crop protection, consumer chemicals… chemicals are also heavily involved in production and manufacturing processes in many sectors of the economy.

Currently, the system of legal documents on chemical management is relatively complete, the legal regulations have created a legal corridor, companies that are active in the field of chemicals have to answer for themselves.

Most recently, the government issued Decree No. 82/2022/ND-CP supplementing the provisions: chemical plants must organize samples of chemical incident response plans every year, which are included in the “Chemical Incident Prevention and Response Measures” with the Witnesses or the Witnesses were developed under the direction of a representative of a local specialized management agency. If the establishment stores chemicals included in the list of dangerous chemicals, it must develop a prevention and response plan, but below the threshold set in Annex IV of Decree No. 113/2017/ND-CP.

However, according to the Center for Chemical Incident Response and Safety, Department of Chemicals, Ministry of Industry and Trade, chemical incident response exercises in our country’s communities have not been high in the past period, reaching about 35-40%. The number of places where the exercise was conducted at least once. However, the development of chemical incident prevention and response plans at the provincial level has reached over 90%.

The reason lies in some difficulties of the company itself. At the seminar on “Measures to Strengthen Chemical Incident Response” on December 20, Ms. Ha Thi Nguyet Que, representative of Vu Hoang Chemical and Environmental Technology Co., Ltd. said it is a staffing issue. Companies lack staff with really good skills to respond to chemical incidents.

“We manufacture and trade chemical raw materials, so there are many engineers who have good degrees in engineering from leading universities in Vietnam, but the employees have professional qualifications in this field. The security area is missing,” Ms. Que said in Fact.

In addition, there are four difficulties in responding to the field: on-site leadership, on-site mobilization, on-site vehicles, and on-site logistics when responding to chemical incidents. Mainly on-site means that companies have tried to arm themselves with the best equipment to deal with this, but with a large volume of goods being stored at the factory, it will be very difficult to be outside of the company’s control .

SPECIFIC REGULATIONS REQUIRED

Facing the difficulties faced by companies in responding to chemical incidents, Nguyen Xuan Sinh, deputy director of the Department of Chemicals (Ministry of Industry and Commerce), said it is imperative for companies to develop prevention plans. Rehearsals must be supervised, including in situations directed by the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Mr Sinh stressed the role of local management agencies in this matter. Because of construction measures that do not require compulsory exercises, then the business is done with it … Shortcomings in leadership.

Therefore, it is necessary to improve legal policy, to have more specific legal regulations, specific regulations for each stage of chemical activities.

In addition, the local chemical incident response apparatus is extremely important. These are police, fire protection, rescue and rescue, environmental forces and health workers who also have their own skills. Every year this team needs to be trained with specific skills.

In addition to the state intervention force, emergency services should be available in the industrial park, e.g. B. Equipment of companies… Because if the fire protection and fighting forces did not arrive on time, companies have equipment that is able to respond proactively.

On the business side, there is a need to regularly strengthen the incident response force, practice regularly to improve skills, and deal with situations by yourself.

As a province with 16 concentrated industrial zones, the number of operating enterprises is very large, the use of chemicals is high to actively respond to local chemicals, Mr. Hoang Anh Tuan, deputy director of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, said: Thuong Bac Ninh said that the province will continue to implement it more rigorously, taking into account the obligation for companies to have equipment in each area that the provincial chemical incident response steering committee will understand and maneuver as needed.

“We recommend the provincial military command to invest in equipment such as smokers, cleaning vehicles and toxic chemical treatment vehicles during incidents to avoid the phenomenon when it occurs without notice, limited time…” Mr. Tuan shared.

At the same time, it will continue to thoroughly understand and disseminate relevant laws, support and guide companies to comply with legal guidelines on chemical incident response…