Event
- Event ID
- 188
- Quality
- Description
- The explosion occurred in a plant for the production of butter. It was due to the rupture of a hydrogen tank, during a sterilisation process at high temperature (so-called UHT treatment).
Two fatalities and 12 injuries.
The explosion blew away the roof of the unit and severely damaged the other installation. - Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- Macro-region
- Asia
- Country
- Pakistan
- Date
- Main component involved?
- Cgh2 Storage Vessel
- How was it involved?
- Rupture & Formation Of A Flammable H2-Air Mixture
- Initiating cause
- Unknown
- Root causes
- Unknown (No additional details provided)
- Root CAUSE analysis
- The INITIATING cause is due to the rupture of a hydrogen cylinder during UHT sterilisation process.
Facility
- Application
- Chemical Industry
- Sub-application
- Food production
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- Hydrogen Storage (No additional details provided)
- All components affected
- Manufacturing of butter, UHT sterilisation treatment
- Location type
- Confined
- Location description
- Industrial Area
- Operational condition
- Pre-event occurrences
- The UHT treatment consists in the exposure for a very short time (few seconds) to temperature of approximately 135 -150˚C.
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 12
- Number of fatalities
- 2
- Post-event summary
- Two persons died and 12 injured (among which 6 workers). The explosion has blown away the roof of the unit and severely damaged the other installation.
- Emergency action
- The fire lasted 6h30
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Presumed ignition source
- Hot surface
References
- Reference & weblink
Original event in ARIA (https://www.aria.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/accident/23739/)
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- ARIA
