Highway Truck Crash and Fire
On a highway, a truck loaded with 400 gas cylinders crashed at night for an undetermined cause against a concrete wall and overturned. It slipped 150 m, before several 200 litre cylinders of hydrogen caught fire and set the truck on fire as well. The police stated that it was a large fire with detonations. The 400 gas cylinders were connected together and many of the cylinders had fallen out of their racks. In order to reduce the danger of further explosions, the fire-brigade cooled the gas cylinders with water for two hours. The highway remained closed for eight hours. The driver cabin burned completely. The damage was estimated at 200,000 Euros, not including the damage to the tarmac. The truck driver was taken to hospital with heavy injuries.
Event Date
April 30, 2005
Record Quality Indicator
Region / Country
Event Initiating System
Classification of the Physical Effects
Nature of the Consequences
Causes
Cause Comments
The reason of the crash is unknown
Facility Information
Application Type
Application
Specific Application Supply Chain Stage
Components Involved
gas cylinders
Storage/Process Medium
Storage/Process Quantity
15
Storage/Process Units
Actual Pressure
200
Design Pressure
200
Location Type
Location description
Highway
Operational Condition
Pre-event Summary
Assuming that all the 200 l cylinders were completely filled at 20 MPa, the truck was carrying a max of 15.4 kg of H2.
Consequences
Number of Injured Persons
5
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
The source does not report any lesson elarned. The fact that the cylindrs were all connected to each other suggest as corrective design measure the installation of proper pressure control systems on smaller subsystem.
Event Nature
Emergency Action
The highway was closed to traffic for 8 hours. To reduce the risk of further explosions, the fire-brigade cooled the gas cylinders with water for two hours. Due to the absence of near water sources, a long water hose had to be connected to a source in the nearest town.
Detonation
No
Deflagration
No
High Pressure Explosion
No
High Voltage Explosion
No
Source Category
References
References
Die Welt news of 30 April 2005
https://www.welt.de/regionales/nrw/article842473/Gastransporter-explodi…
(accessed Aug 2023)