Duncan Harley

The Piper Alpha Memorial In Aberdeen Today - 6 July 2020, marks the 32nd anniversary of the Piper Alpha disaster in which 167 offshore workers lost their lives when a North Sea oil and gas platform caught fire 120 miles  northeast of Aberdeen.  Truly cataclysmic in scale, the tragedy marked a turning point in the oil and gas industry's sometimes cavalier attitude to health and safety. Lord Cullen, in his two-year inquiry into the tragedy, concluded that both engineering failings and a lack of basic safety protocol had led directly to the deaths. The Piper Alpha platform was said to be ageing, rusting and unstable and much was made of the claims by survivors that safety alarms were routinely ignored. In the light of the Cullen Report, health and safety law underwent major changes in the UK. Offshore survival training became mandatory and protective clothing compulsory. On top of that, offshore rigs nowadays are required by law to have quick escape routes to...

This week the Scottish papers are full of supplements reflecting on the death of 167 offshore workers just 30 years ago today and even The Times in Scotland carries a splendid but short piece commemorating the event.  Tonight, a reading of the names of the dead is due to take place in Aberdeen’s Hazlehead Park. Truly cataclysmic, Piper Alpha represented a turning point in offshore safety. Lord Cullen, in his two-year inquiry into the tragedy, concluded that both engineering failings and a lack of basic safety protocol had led directly to the deaths. The Piper Alpha platform was said to be ageing, rusting and unstable and much was made of the claim that safety alarms were routinely ignored. In the light of the Cullen Report, Health and Safety law underwent major changes in the UK. Offshore survival training became mandatory and protective clothing compulsory. On top of that, rigs nowadays are required by law to have quick escape routes to lifeboats. Amongst Lord...

As one of the Chernobyl generation I am always on the look out for signs of nuclear illness. The radioactive cloud from the disaster sped slowly over all of Europe spreading an invisible ash over the entire continent. As with Windscale before it, Chernobyl was officially downplayed. The very public pouring of milk down Northumbrian drains following the Windscale nuclear disaster kind of gave the game away and Windscale was quickly renamed Sellafield as a cover-up for those guilty parties. Shameful indeed. Officially the only folk to suffer were the oysters of the Irish Sea who were found to contain a mixture of radioactive Cerium, Ruthenium and Caesium. In the case of Chernobyl, although the region around the stricken town was evacuated and the place remains contaminated till this very day, us Scots were told not to worry but simply advised not to eat sheep sourced from those high pastures around the English borders. Seemingly the politicians, the scientists and the engineers o...