Evaluation of Determinants of Effective Control of Major Accidents in the Port of Mombasa

Abstract

Mombasa port plays a pivotal role in the socio-economic development of East and Central African countries where goods of varying hazards transit the port. The risk of serious accidents is inevitable because of dangerous operations involving cranes and hazardous materials. Hence the importance of ports as a potential source of accidents of diverse types (spills, explosions, fires, toxic fumes) is closely linked to the function of the port itself and to the installations and activities associated to it, which feature transfer from water to land (and vice versa) of large amounts of waterborne cargo, with a wide diversity hazardous material capable of causing major accidents. The main objective of this study was to evaluate determinants of effective control of major accidents in the port of Mombasa. The study employed a cross-sectional study design where a structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Random sampling was used to identify 248 study participants from a population of 650 workers. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 20 at 95% confidence interval. The data was subjected to descriptive tests to determine proportions as well as chi square test. Data was presented using graphs and tables. The rates of occupational accidents in Mombasa port were significantly high with 99.5% of the port workers reporting to have witnessed occurrence of accidents. The major accidents reported by port workers were crane failure, chemical spillage, fire accidents and explosions. The main container terminal had recorded the highest number of occupational accidents compared to the conventional terminal. Test for association was done where there was a significant association between training on major accident hazards and improvement on understanding of major accident prevention where X² = 0.029 P=0.05 DF=1. This could mean that training on major accident would help in increasing employees understanding and response to major accidents.