Two men burned, one ‘critically’ in early morning incident

Details are only now emerging of a blast at the Arawak Cement Company’s plant at Checker Hall, St Lucy in the early hours of Sunday morning in which two men were burned, one critically.

Now Police at Crab Hill are making an appeal for information on the apparent industrial accident in which one worker was burned over 90 per cent of his body while so far the CEMEX-owned cement factory has remained silent since for the last two days.

According to police, about 3:08 on Sunday morning, three workers were overseeing a cement mixing process. 

“During the process, a blockage was observed”, police said and the three-man crew “took steps to remedy the blockage” when the hot mixture was expelled, dousing one man completely and exposing another man to the radiant heat.

The workers were named as plant attendants Brian Moore and Erroll Lewis and Process Supervisor Vincent Ellis. In the blast of hot cement mix, Moore was completely covered and Ellis “sustained radiant exposure”.

During the manufacture of portland cement, raw materials are heated in a kiln to temperatures as high as 1600 degrees Celsius (2912 degrees Fahrenheit).

Both injured men were transported to QEH by ambulances.

Brian Moore reportedly has burns covering about 90 per cent of his body and is listed as gravely/critically injured. Ellis is reportedly detained at Ward B7 with burns to both hands and feet.

Commissioned in 1984, the Arawak Cement Company was a joint venture of the Barbadian and Trinidadian governments. But after sustaining heavy losses, its kiln was shut down in 1991.

The shareholders decided to sell the loss-making company, which had been operating as a grinding circuit supplying cement for the domestic market, to the TCL Group in March 1994. A $13.6 million project to reactivate the kiln as part of a complete overhaul of the business led to its being fired up once more in April 1997 and a return to profitability.

The Mexican cement giant CEMEX gained a 70 per cent control of the TCL Group in January 2017, firming up a relationship which began with CEMEX’s acquisition of one-fifth of TCL shares in 1994.

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