Polyplas and its natural gas supplier have begun the reparations to the plastic factory neighbors. The companies say reparations will be completed in less than 30 days. The reparations come after the tragedy in which eight persons are confirmed to have died and over 100 injured evolved into a mismatch of clashes between two large Dominican companies that seemed to play volleyball with who was to blame. Despite the many deaths, the Attorney General has not announced it has ordered an investigation.
The explosion became a textbook case of how not to handle a crisis and the absence of sufficient safety protocols that should be in place for the adequate management of a natural gas supply in a factory located in a heavily populated neighborhood.
The rector of the Catholic University of Santo Domingo, Monsignor Jesus Castro Marte, criticized the attitude assumed by the employers in the case of the explosion of the Polyplas plastics factory, in the Villas Agrícolas sector, which left eight dead and 103 wounded. “We are facing a reality and a picture where the human has been ignored. In contrast, we see how personal fulfillment, maintaining an image before society and not being affected by the lack of enforcement of security regulations has led a society to live a drama in which they, the poorest, are not the priority,” he said.
Polyplas company executives said on an Alicia Ortega TV interview that they had protocols to deal with plastics emergencies, not fuel emergency, attributing this responsibility to the natural suppliers.
Furthermore, security expert Daniel Pou criticized that the NatGas operator was delivering the fuel by himself. When the operator attempted to take out the faulty hose, the natural gas froze his leg, causing major injuries. He was rescued by Polyplas personnel, but the explosion would happen shortly after.
Over the weekend, Telenoticias carried a story where it called for the firing of the director of the National District firemen, Rafael Rosario Valentin, for being partial to the Propagas supplier company and issuing premature statements blaming Polyplas for not turning off its boiler. The company later established the boiler was not affected.
Over the weekend, the trending topic on social media was the heated conversation between the president of Polyplas, Manuel Diez Cabral, and the president of Propagas, Arturo Santana. The discussion regarding the use or not of the brand name Propagas in the Polyplas explosion case went viral after the conversation between Diez and Santana was leaked to social media. In the conversation, Santana asks Diez to not use the name of Propagas and instead use that of Nat-Gas. He argues Nat-Gas was the name on the tanker-truck and the storage tank at the plastics factory that began the crisis. Santana argued he did not want to affect the long-term brand name. But Diez argued his lawyers said that the company had contracted Propagas not Nat-Gas division and lawyers advised that the name of Propagas should appear in the public dealings of the case. Santana argued that the tank was in the name of Nat-Gas, and that the truck supplying the fuel was Nat-Gas.
Grupo Propagas owns Nat-Gas, their division of natural gas (LNG). The group is also umbrella group for Propa-Gas that has over 70 stations for vehicular, industrial and commercial use, in addition to its tanker trucks. Next fuel stations (gasoline and diesel), Transporte de Gas (TransGas), a fuel transporting fleet with over 200 units, and Coastal Petroleum that imports and GLP, Avtur, diesel and gasoline.
Meanwhile, more than 25 families that had to be evacuated await insurance coverage. Polyplas lodged the families in a nearby hotel.
Subsequently, Polyplas would issue a press release saying the companies had reached an agreement with their “gas supplier.” But the recorded conversation between the two business magnates clearly revealed that the “gas supplier” that signed the contract with Polyplas was, indeed, Propagas, Manuel Diez Cabral refrained in his communiqué from mentioning that brand name.
The very diplomatic communiqué said that Polyplas feels it is time to lend help and assistance to those affected by the explosion and suggested that nothing positive would come from stimulating a confrontation with its gas supplier and that he had reached an agreement with the supplier. The explosion and resulting fires have, up until now, killed eight persons, wounded dozens and caused huge damages to businesses, houses, schools and many vehicles. 25 families had to be relocated.
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Diario Libre
El Dia
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El Dia
17 December 2018
