Perforation of an oil pipeline
While conducting earthworks, a loader punctured an oil pipeline (Ø = 400 mm), buried 1.2 m deep and carrying naphtha at a pressure of 8-10 bar. Emanating from a 30 cm² opening, a jet spray 5 to 10 m high[...]
Explosion of a truck of explosives
At 9:45 am, a vehicle transporting nearly 800 kg of explosives exploded while making a U-turn on a company's premises within an industrial park where it had taken a wrong turn. The lorry, specially equipped to transport up to 5[...]
Rupture of a cryogenic ammonia tank in a fertilizer production plant
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[...]
Rupture of a tank in a refinery
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[...]
Hydrogen tank explosion in a chemical plant
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[...]
Explosion and fire in a chemical factory
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[...]
Explosion in a dynamite factory
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[...]
Fire in a fertilizer depot
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[...]
Port Edouard Herriot fire
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[...]
