A fire broke out at 10:15 am in a warehouse subject to authorization (item 1510 of the nomenclature of the French classified installations) at an external storage of wooden pallets. Employees are evacuated prior to the arrival of firefighters.
The economic consequences of the event are estimated at:
The volume of the extinguishing water is evaluated at 50 m³. No damage to the environment is noticed by the opera [...]
At around 3 a.m., a deep-seated fire broke out in an outdoor 50,000 m3 woodchip storage in a waste recycling facility (24 m high, located on the facility's property line). White smoke was emitted above the urban zone and the highway. Access to the site was difficult for the firefighters because of the volume of the stack. The wind propagated the flames. An expert specialised in deep-seated fires was called upon. The CASU (the INERIS Emergency Support Unit) was asked to provide models of smoke dispersion, given the possible human consequences [...]
Vers 15h15, un rejet de chlorure de vinyle monomère (CVM - substance cancérigène, mutagène, reprotoxique) se produit dans une usine de fabrication de matières plastiques de base.
Vers 14h50, suite au déclenchement de l'alimentation électrique principale du site et au défaut de basculement sur le secours électrique 20 kV, les groupes diesel de secours démarrent afin d'alimenter les installations de secours et de contrôle-comma [...]
Damaged compressor : dual-stage compressor compressing ethylene from 3 to 33 bar. It operates alternately with the main compressor. On the day of the accident, it had been in operation for 43 days since its last maintenance five months prior. It was located next to two other compressors (Nos. 2 and 3). The latter two had been shut down and automatically isolated upon activation of the gas detectors, which was not the case for the damaged compressor No. 1, which had to be isolated manually from the control room.
In a petrochemical complex, a [...]
> 173 fatalities
> Destruction of civil infrastructure within a 1-km radius
> Cyanide pollution
> Site rehabilitation
Fire broke out at 10:50 pm at the site of a logistics company, operating since 2011 in the Tianjin port sector with a floor area covering 46,000 m². At the time of the accident, the company had been storing on-site several types of hazardous substances: calcium carbide, toluene diisocyanate, ammonium nitrates, potassium and sodium, as well as 700 tonnes of sodium cyanide.
As fire-fighters were attacking the blaze with water, 2 expl [...]
In a 3,000 m² vinegar factory, a 150 m³ tank containing 40 m³ of alcohol vinegar exploded at around 9:40 a.m. while undergoing welding work. The tank, measuring 13 m in height and 4 m in diameter, was projected like a missile. It flew through the roof and landed 80 m from the building, on the Nîmes-Grau du Roi railway line. The emergency rescue services took 2 injured employees to the hospital, one of whom had been badly burned. Rail traffic was interrupted. The spilt alcohol was collected in the holding tank. The building adjoining the [...]
In a chemical plant, a leak of effluents containing acetonitrile (a harmful and flammable solvent) from the process wastewater system lead to groundwater contamination. As the network was used only sporadically, the duration of the leak could not be accurately determined. A maximal estimate gave 557 days. The potential loss is estimated to be 61 t of acetonitrile.
Wells were established to try to recover the pollutant through pumping and to sample the groundwater. Three tonnes of acetonitrile were recovered by pumping operations over a period [...]
