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Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Leak on a LH2 tanker

Event

Event ID
1190
Quality
Description
Hydrogen leaked from a liquid hydrogen tank-trailer parked at a rest area of a highway.
The release was remarked as a plume of with vapour, plausibly caused by cold hydrogen release and vapour condensation.
Police, fire authorities, and Korea Gas Safety Corporation checked the amount of hydrogen leakage and the risk of explosion at the scene and mobilised the safety equipment required to complete the safe remove hydrogen from the tank, which happened in 6 hours.
There were no injuries or negative consequence to health. Nevertheless, dealing with the emergency caused severe congestion in the area. The rest area and a 13 km section of the highway were closed for more than three hours causing traffic chaos.
Event Initiating system
Classification of the physical effects
Unignited Hydrogen Release
Nature of the consequences
Leak No Ignition (No additional details provided)
Macro-region
Asia
Date
Main component involved?
Piping (Weld)
How was it involved?
Leak & Formation Of A Flammable H2-Air Mixture
Initiating cause
Material Degradation (Generic)
Root causes
Unknown (No additional details provided)
Root CAUSE analysis
The INITIATING CAUSE appears to be a leak at valve-pipe joint in the control cabinet at the rear of the tank.
The ROOT CAUSE is unknown

Facility

Application
Hydrogen Transport And Distribution
Sub-application
LH2 tanker
Hydrogen supply chain stage
Hydrogen Transport (No additional details provided)
All components affected
valve, pipe
Location type
Open
Operational condition

Emergency & Consequences

Number of injured persons
0
Number of fatalities
0
Environmental damage
0
Property loss (onsite)
0
Property loss (offsite)
0

Lesson Learnt

Lesson Learnt

There is not enough information to draw specific lesson n learnt, The only point deserving mentioning is that this incident confirm the general evidence that liquid hydrogen tank releases do not ignite often.

Event Nature

Release type
gas
Involved substances (% vol)
H2 100%
Presumed ignition source
No ignition

References

Reference & weblink

Gasnews.com news<br />
https://www.gasnews.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=121253<br />
(accessed August 2025)

YonHap TV news<br />
https://www.yonhapnewstv.co.kr/news/MYH20250809194255754<br />
(accessed August 2025)

JRC assessment