Amuay refinery disaster: The aftermaths and challenges ahead

• Amuay refinery accident (2012) was investigated.
• The safety distances from explosion and fires were discussed.
• An explosion overpressure of > 200 kPa was deduced from damage analysis.
• Safety distances from multiple tank fires were estimated as ~ 0.5 km.
• Recommendations for avoiding such incidents in future are provided.

Amuay refinery disaster (2012) is another recent example of Vapor Cloud Explosion (VCE) and fire accidents preceded by Buncefield (2005), Puerto-Rico (2009) and Jaipur (2009), respectively [9]. The incident has left many safety issues behind which must be repeatedly addressed. Unfortunately, the lessons taught by previous similar events are just not understood carefully. It reveals that the proper safety measures for such facilities were either underestimated or were not accounted seriously. Consequently, the resulting overpressures from explosion and the subsequent thermal radiation from tank fires have once again proved to be disastrous to both mankind and infrastructure. This article highlights the aftermaths of Amuay incident and addresses the challenges put forward by it. Furthermore, a comparative study is performed between such incidents to analyze the similarities and how they could have been avoided.