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July 5, 2013

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Piper Alpha: Web community to aid student learning of disaster

An online community to support teachers in educating pupils about the Piper Alpha disaster has been launched to mark its 25th anniversary, the Scottish Government has announced.

Education Scotland has created a community space on its Glow intranet, designed specifically for teachers. The online community provides a digital space for teachers to share approaches to learning and teaching about the world’s worst offshore disaster.

The Glow online community, which went live yesterday (4 July), complements existing resources on the website about the Piper Alpha disaster, which occurred on 6 July 1988 and resulted in the deaths of 167 men. The site includes links to interviews with survivors, news items, and, from next week, will include footage from the documentary ‘Fire in the Night’, which recently premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival.

Tomorrow (6 July) First Minister Alex Salmond will attend the rededication of the Piper Alpha Memorial Gardens at Hazelhead Park, Aberdeen.

Speaking ahead of this event, he said: “Almost 25 years on, our first obligation to the men who died in the Piper Alpha tragedy remains ensuring a disaster like this is never allowed to happen again.

“Safety in the oil and gas industry has improved massively since the recommendations made in the Cullen report, but we owe it to the memory of those who were lost to continue to make safety absolutely the first priority for workers offshore.”

He continued: “The 25th anniversary has rightly had a substantial emphasis in making sure that the new generation of offshore workers understand the importance of Piper Alpha in creating the current offshore safety regime.

“However, given that the oil industry will be with us for the next half century and more, we also have a responsibility to ensure that new generations of Scots understand the significance of the world’s worst offshore disaster. This new resource for schools will help ensure that this can happen.”

Earlier this week (2 July), IOSH hosted a parliamentary reception to mark the 25th anniversary. The event, attended by a number of MPs, saw Energy minister Michael Fallon speak about the UK Government’s commitment to offshore safety.

Warning, also, about the challenges ahead for the offshore industry, he said: “He continued: “I believe that one of the key challenges the industry, workforce and regulators face today, and longer-term, is how do they stay true to the abiding principles introduced by Lord Cullen, but in a world that is substantially different from that in 1988, and which continues to change and develop at an even faster pace. For example, new technologies have to be adopted and new, inexperienced companies are coming into the UKCS to work.

€ᄄ€ᄄ”Maintaining continuity with those things from the past, which still hold true, but adapting to this ever-changing environment, will be key to a successful and safe North Sea.”

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