The incident occurred in a facility chrome-plating metals. At the time of the event, a metal roller was being chrome-plated. A short circuit occurred due to a defective contacting (contact rails) on the rectifier. This short circuit caused a spark to reach the surface of the electrolyte bath, and the spark ignited the hydrogen produced during chrome plating, causing an explosion.Various windows within the company were destroyed, but nobosy was injured.

A fire broke out on a transformer transforming 225,000 V into 15,000 V in a metallurgical plant. This transformer supplies electrical power the site and to a neighbouring factory. In the following three hours, staff brought the fire under control with CO2 extinguishers, the internal emergency plan was activated, and the firefighters ventilated the premises and took readings of the flames using a thermal camera. Meanwhile, however, the shutdown of the electrical installation caused the stop of the operation of an electrolysis unit using zinc sulphate.

This near miss occurred at metal smelting unit of a foundry. At 9:45 a.m., due to a power outage, the cooling pumps of two furnaces containing nickel and chromium stopped. One of the two furnaces was at the end of the smelting cycle. The temperature of the metal was 1300C. Due to the stop of the cooling system, water from the public network took over the cooling function, but was not efficient, causing the cooling coil to overheat.

The 10 m3 hydrogen storage tank at the hydrogen station belonging to the oxygen plant exploded during production operation. The hydrogen storage tank was installed and used by the plant in 1995, with a design pressure of 1,5 MPa, a volume of 10 m^3, a minimum wall thickness of 12 mm, a total length of 4576 mm (height) and an inner diameter of 1800 mm. After the explosion, there were no metal components left, except for the cement prefabricated foundation of the tank base.

An explosion followed by a fire occurred at a tar precipitator of gas treatment of a coke oven. The extractors were manually activated. Ten minutes later, the operator activates the internal emergency plan. The fuel supply to the installation was interrupted. Approximately two hours later the fire was extinguished by nitrogen inerting. The operator estimated the maximum amount of material that reacted in the explosion of the tar precipitator at 170 kg in TNT equivalent.

An implosion/explosion occurred on a furnace in a company of copper metallurgy. The incident occurred at the end of the production cycle, when the furnace bell is lifted at the end of the cooling process. The operator in charge of the lifting was thrown away and slightly burned in the face. The victim was evacuated and the emergency services were alerted. The building structures (windows, doors, roof) experienced serious damage. The power supply was switched off.

The event occurred in the continuous casting of hot metallic melt of the plant.Cooling water leaked through a crack in the cooling water inlet pipe of a secondary cooling line and directly into the hot melt (temperature > 1500 C). This resulted in the formation of hydrogen which ignited on the hot surface. The pipe in question had been in operation for a prolonged period. The material analyses of the component showed that the rupture occurred as a consequence of fatigue. The annual visual inspection had revealed no signs of imminent failure.

The event occurred at one of the unit producing iron powder, consisting of a furnace with a running belt for the powder, kept under hydrogen atmosphere to reduce and purify the metal. The hydrogen was supplied to the furnace through a pipeline running in a trench below the furnace. A corroded section of this pipeline released hydrogen which could cumulated in the covered trench for at least 30 before igniting. The following hydrogen explosion projected into the atmosphere a large quantity of iron dust, which also ignited.

Employees were trying to open the manhole cover (600 mm diameter) of a hydrofluoric acid tank with a grinder, when an explosion occurred. The explosion was probably caused by the presence of hydrogen formed by the acid attack of the metal.

The fire took place during maintenance works in one out of the three gas extractors of the coke process line. Main cause was displacement of a flange which allowed the entrance of flammable mixture gas (methane, carbon monoxide hydrogen and benzene) which ignited probably due to electrostatic spark. According to the ARIA report (see references) total quantity of gas released was 62 400 m, consisting of 11,7 t CH4, 0,98 t C6H6, 5,1 t CO and 3,4 t H2.During maintenance works, gas extractors were usually isolated and kept under continuous flow of N2.