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Safety disc failure

  • FRANCE
At a chemical facility, a recently replaced graphite safety disc (nominal diam.: 250) calibrated at 3 bar broke on a 12-m³ reactor used to solubilize a Resol resin. This intermediate resinous agent, included in production activities for the hide tanning[...]
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Water pollution

  • FRANCE
On Sunday, 20 m³ of a chelated iron-EDDHAS complex polluted the BRENNE River following an operational incident in one of the workshops at a chemical plant manufacturing basic organic products. A closed-loop iron complex filtration phase started up at 5 am[...]
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Orthocresol leakage

  • PAYS-BAS
In a dockside warehouse of oil and petroleum products, a reservoir containing 1,600 m³ of ortho-cresol broke and a vapour cloud rose in the direction of the nearby Rotterdam metropolitan area. The reservoir collapsed on one of its sides and[...]
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Release of a chlorine cloud in a chemical plant

  • FRANCE
Inside a chemical plant, 2 kg of chlorine were released into the atmosphere from a liquid trap that initially contained 98% sulphuric acid. The facility's internal emergency plan was activated. Notified by the operator, the railway station, located 200 m away,[...]
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1,200 t of cyclohexane leaks

  • FRANCE
During efforts since the previous day to locate the source of a pressure drop on the cyclohexane supply line of an olone production facility, a leak of this substance was discovered at a chemical site. The substance, used in large[...]
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Tray overflow during a transfer operation

  • BELGIQUE
A ship was unloading its cargo into a tank located in a petroleum depot. The handling operations were being carried out normally for the transfer. Suddenly, a warning alarm signalled that the first tank was nearly full. As the operator[...]
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Explosion followed by a fire in a chemical plant

  • ITALIE
At a chemical plant, a tank containing a mix of toluene-2,6-diisocyanate (TDI) / tars with a high boiling point increased in pressure and exploded around 7:40 pm. The cloud ignited 5 min later; afterwards, the fire was fed by 20[...]
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Flaming gas leak in a refinery

  • FRANCE
At a refinery early in the evening (8:22 pm), a leak ignited on a stripping column of the gasoline hydrotreatment unit. This step was intended to eliminate a number of impurities (sulfurized, nitrogenated and oxygenated compounds, metals) before being routed[...]
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Cracking of a silo storage cell

  • FRANCE
The concrete wall of one of the vertical storage bins cracked throughout its length of 25 m in the silo of an agricultural cooperative built in 1963 during the first out of the three construction lots of the facility. About[...]
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Rupture of a cell in a grain silo

  • FRANCE
Around 11:50 am, a driver loading his lorry using the side drainage system on a silo storage cell noticed that pieces of concrete were falling into his trailer dumpster. He informed the warehouse attendant responsible for destocking and then quickly[...]
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