Students who study science or engineering can’t avoid carrying out experiments.
In this article, Let’s look into experimental accidents and experimental safety.


A fire broke out at the 2nd Engineering Building
On September 25 at 3:41 p.m., in the 2nd Engineering Building on the 1st floor a fire broke out in the resource recycle laboratory while environmental engineering graduate school students carried out an experiment on biomass to make gas.

All the students who participated in this experiment saw the fire and tried to put it out with an extinguisher when they saw that the experimental equipment was about to burn. They got out of the building very quickly with the other students who were there because of the smoke, so there were no injuries.

A student who participated in the experiment said “Suddenly, the fire spreaded to the equipment, it grew into a big fire, so we couldn’t extinguish it”. At that time a student who was doing an experiment in the next laboratory said “While I was working on my experiment, a student from the next laboratory asked me for a fire extinguisher. I was searching for it though I should have run away from the building because of the black smoke”.

A spokesperson for Dongdaemoon Fire Station said “The fire burned approximately 10m2 of equipment and laboratory. The fire fighters got the fire under control quickly, so it didn’t spread to other places”.

Laboratories at risk ...
Laboratories in other universities are also at risk. This year, a fire broke out in two out of three universities in Seoul. Many of these cases occured in the laboratory. It has been two years since the ‘laboratory environmental safety law’, which was passed for safety in laboratories and compensation for loss in accidents has taken effect.

Causes of laboratory incidents ...
According to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology 70% of laboratory incidents are caused by lack of attention and imperfect experiments. Though accidents happened, universities and research institutes haven’t recorded all incidents - only 14% of universities, 26% of research institutions. So it allows similar accidents to happen again and again.

The reporter interviewed Prof. Chang Keun-a (Dept. of Biology) about accidents during experiments. She replied that before they start an experiment, students are aware not to make problems. But many people who carried out experiments often forgot or can sometimes be careless of safety regulations. Therefore, we should keep in mind and observe the safety regulations everytime.

A danger foreseen is half avoided .....
On October 30, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology devised a plan called ‘laboratory safety’, a comprehensive plan for major improvement of laboratory safety environment. Not only this, the most important thing is, students must try to obey the safety regulations!
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