Event
- Event ID
- 72
- Quality
- Description
- An hydrogen explosion occurred at a railway station during shunting. Two rail cars collided, one ruptured. Nothing further is known. The following explosion was classified as BLEVE (boiling liquid expanding vapor explosions).
- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- Macro-region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Date
- Main component involved?
- Cgh2 Tank (Rail)
- How was it involved?
- Rupture & Formation Of A Flammable H2-Air Mixture
- Initiating cause
- Impact, Rollover, Crash
- Root causes
- Unknown (No additional details provided)
- Root CAUSE analysis
- The INITIATING CAUSE was the collision between two rail cars
The ROOT CAUSE is unknown
Facility
- Application
- Hydrogen Transport And Distribution
- Sub-application
- H2 rail transport
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- Hydrogen Transport (No additional details provided)
- All components affected
- rail car
- Location type
- Open
- Location description
- Railway Or Train Station
- Operational condition
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 1
- Post-event summary
- The only known fact tis that the ' car reptured' . It is to be assumed that it was a total loss.
- Emergency action
- The operator was wearing safety glasses and a hard hat, which were blown off by the blast.
Event Nature
- Release type
- liquid
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Presumed ignition source
- Not reported
References
- Reference & weblink
Palle Haastrup and Lars.Brockhoff <br />
Severity of accidents with hazardous materials - A comparison between transportation and fixed installations<br />
J. Loss Prevention Process Ind., 13 (990), 395-405WIKIPEDIA page 'List of boiling liquid expanding vapor explosions'<br />
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_boiling_liquid_expanding_vapor_ex… />
(accessed June 2025)
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- Scientific article
