Event
- Event ID
- 1104
- Quality
- Description
- A private car crashed against a hydrogen storage system at the gate of a company processing metals (Seveso plant).
The storage consisted in two bundles made of several bottles each, containing compressed hydrogen, located just after the entrance gate.
The car lost control and crashed against one of the two hydrogen bundles, causing hydrogen release, ignition and explosion followed by a fire. From the pictures, it was a fire engulfing the entire bundle.
It is unclear what the private car was doing there, because the driver was not an employee of the company. The road ends with the gate and road works were ongoing, so that normal traffic was forbidden.
The local fire brigade brought easily the fire under control and remained to cool the tanks of the other bundle, to prevent a possible escalation. Nothing is known on the amount hydrogen released, and the state of the storage after the fire. - Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- Macro-region
- Europe
- Country
- Belgium
- Date
- Main component involved?
- Cgh2 Storage Vessel
- How was it involved?
- Rupture & Formation Of A Flammable H2-Air Mixture
- Initiating cause
- Impact, Rollover, Crash
- Root causes
- Root CAUSE analysis
- INITIATING cause: loss of control of a vehicle and a crash against the hydrogen storage.
Root cause: the online news do not provide enough information to answer the following questions:
1. why was such a storage placed just behind the entrance gate, without protection against collision?
2. Why was the entrance gate open?
3. why a private car driven by somebody who as not part of the company could access the company ground, on a road not open to public?
Facility
- Application
- Steel And Metals Industry
- Sub-application
- generic metal processing
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
- car, compressed hydrogen bundle
- Location type
- Open
- Location description
- Industrial Area
- Operational condition
- Unknown (No additional details provided)
- Pre-event occurrences
- The online news reports that (road) works were ongoing, and that the area was interdicted to traffic.
Bystander reported also that the car lost control before crashing.
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 1
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Post-event summary
- The driver was hurt in the crash, but was not anymore in the vehicle when the fire started.
Lesson Learnt
- Lesson Learnt
The online news do not provide enough information to make conclusions. By analysis the event on the basis of the scarce visual data, it appears strange that two hydrogen pallets were ‘parked’ just behind the entrance gate, without protection against crash.
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Presumed ignition source
- Not reported
References
- Reference & weblink
VTR online news:<br />
https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2024/05/01/ontploffing-umicore/Nieuwsblad.be online news:<br />
https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20240501_97533783JRC summary:
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- News