2 Dead, 2 Injured in Thai Biomass Incinerator Gas Leak

June 11, 2013. Source: Phuket Wan

PHUKET: An expat engi­neer killed while try­ing to res­cue oth­ers after a gas leak at a bio­mass pow­er plant has died a hero, it emerged today.

Fresh reports on the unusu­al calami­ty that also killed a Thai man indi­cate that New Zealan­der Michael Cop­pins, 51, was gassed while try­ing to res­cue others.

In the after­math of the ear­ly morn­ing cri­sis inside a three-storey ven­ti­la­tor chim­ney in south­ern Thai­land, Mr Cop­pins’ broth­er Phil told Radio New Zealand that his broth­er would always act first and think of the con­se­quences lat­er. News reports described ”chaot­ic scenes” yes­ter­day at the eco-friend­ly site where the tragedy occurred, Plan Eco Ener­gy Co, being erect­ed next to Para Veneer 2002 Co in Thai­land’s Trang province.

Mr Cop­pins and his col­league tried to save a cou­ple who passed out in a three-metre wide chim­ney after inhal­ing gas. The cou­ple were res­cued but Mr Cop­pins and Rod Singkham, 31, sac­ri­ficed their lives.

In New Zealand, Phil Cop­pins had first learned of what hap­pened when he was con­tact­ed by one of his broth­er’s col­leagues. ”They had­n’t men­tioned at this stage that he was going to res­cue any­body — he’d gone into a restrict­ed are and breathed in some pret­ty dead­ly gas and had been tak­en into hos­pi­tal in a pret­ty bad way, and had a pret­ty low prog­no­sis that he would sur­vive,” he told a radio sta­tion. Only lat­er did it become clear that Michael had died.

The con­di­tions Cop­pins was work­ing under wor­ry his broth­er. The pow­er plant had to be com­plet­ed and they were strug­gling to meet the dead­line to get the plant oper­a­tional, Phil Cop­pins said. ”It sounds like they had done some pret­ty long hours,” he said. ”The fact that they were there at mid­night and on a Sun­day tells a sto­ry of what was need­ed to be done. ”Being the coun­try it was in [Thai­land], I think we are going to strug­gle to get to the bot­tom of what has hap­pened,” Mr Cop­pins’ broth­er said. ”That Mike’s passed away in this man­ner is no sur­prise to us real­ly — that he has saved oth­er peo­ple with no thought to his own cost. It is pret­ty hard to put that proud emo­tion above the heart­bro­ken one.”

Plan Cre­ations has begun build­ing a bio­mass plant using left­over rub­ber saw­dust and tree roots to fuel a five-megawatt pow­er gen­er­a­tor to sup­ply its elec­tric­i­ty needs and sell the excess to the local elec­tric­i­ty authority.

Mr Cop­pins had recent­ly returned to New Zealand for nine weeks for the first time in about five years, local news­pa­pers report­ed. ”We had a real­ly good catch up, so we’re pret­ty grate­ful that we got that time with him,” Phil Cop­pins said.

In a state­ment, the fam­i­ly said Michael had gone to Malaysia in 1993 with a church team, where he helped to repair a long house for the Eban peo­ple of Sarawak. He remained in Malaysia and mar­ried, father­ing three chil­dren. Two are teenage girls, the third is three years old, accord­ing to NZ media. His work in Thai­land was for Kuala Lumpur-based Renew­able Ener­gy Plus. Renew­able ener­gy was a cause he was pas­sion­ate about, believ­ing he would make a pos­i­tive change for the future of the environment.

Police are still inves­ti­gat­ing the full cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the gas leak and the deaths of the two men.

Mr Cop­pins’ body, now at a hos­pi­tal in Songkhla province, will be trans­port­ed to Malaysia or New Zealand.