An explosion occurred during maintenance work carried out inside an explosives factory. A new water pipe from a refrigeration installation needed to be placed into one of the facility’s machine rooms. These works had been prepared by a worker in the maintenance shop. At 11:28 am, another employee, whose office was located in the same building, observed a pipe fragment; he left his office and noticed a broken window pane in the shop. He entered the shop and discovered a colleague laid out on his back with serious injuries to his head and arms. The employee alerted the facility guardian’s office and his own management. A piece of pipe 80 cm long (DN 40) with 2 flanges (at each end) and a diversion using a DN 15 part, completely destroyed by the blast, was found at the victim’s feet. Upon their arrival at the scene, first responders confirmed the death of this victim, whose skull had been pierced by a pipe fragment.

The explosion was caused by traces of pentrite in the pipeline that the worker had been cutting with a blowtorch. The pipeline had not been inerted by burning, as specified in accordance with protocol.

Property damage to the windows and machines amounted to €5,000.

The operator modified workstation instructions, created a “quarantine” type storage, adopted a monitoring plan applicable from disassembly through waste disposal with clearer transfer reporting and storage rules, installed a separate scrap iron container for (inerted) burned metal parts, improved controls, raised personnel awareness, and introduced a cleaning plan (at the production level) specifying by whom, how and when such operations are conducted.