In a fertilizer plant located 12 km from a city with 40,000 population, a cryogenic ammonia (NH3) tank weighing 10,000 tons and filled to 70% capacity suddenly experienced a pressure rise and burst at its base. Under the impact of[...]
Within a refinery storage zone, the shell of a fragile 15,000-m³ tank (at the end of its filling cycle) containing 13,500 m³ of HTS residue (at 130°C) split open. The flow of HC then destroyed two other tanks (15,000 m³[...]
At 6.10 am, a 3000 litre hydrogen gas tank dating back to 1939 (L=14 m, diam.=570 mm) exploded at 135 bar during hydrogenation in a chemical site. The technicians who witnessed the violent explosion followed by a red-orangey fire ball[...]
An explosion and a fire occurred during the night in a chemical plant during the manufacture of a silicon oil- and additive-based waterproofing agent. A junior technician (hired 6 months back), recently assigned to this post, was left without supervision[...]
An explosion occurred in one of the workshops of a dynamite factory. At the time of the accident, the unit was packaging Sofranex-type dynamite cartridges on the new automated dynamite parcelling machine, which had been a source of calibration problems[...]
At a warehouse storing unknown contents, the self-sustaining decomposition of a stockpile of 850 tonnes of fertiliser NPK 15-8-22 delivered five days earlier caused the formation of a cloud 10 km long heading westward; in this cloud, the presence of[...]
At 1:15 pm in an oil depot, an aerosol sparked. One minute later, an explosion occurred that was perceptible several km away. The fire spread and in just a few minutes, several tanks containing hundreds of m³ exploded, sending them[...]
A fire broke out within a warehouse (depot 956) containing phytosanitary products south of Basel. The first responders had been on the scene for 20 min. when fire-fighting teams from neighbouring sites arrived to provide backup. The 80-m high flames[...]
A road combination (tractor and semitrailer) containing 19.38 tonnes of explosives (mainly dynamite in cartridges) exploded around 11:30 pm while stopped on the CD 85 road along the Crouzille pond, 600 m from a junction with the N20 national highway.[...]
The summary of this accident has not yet been translated. In the meantime, please refer to the French summary : Une émission de 3,5 t de CVM a lieu sur un site chimique fabricant du PVC. La chaîne Poly III[...]
