At around 5 p.m., a massive explosion destroyed a 4-storey building consisting of 10 flats, killing 17 people and injuring 15 others. Two semi-detached council housing buildings were damaged (10 flats). One hundred firemen intervened, assisted by search and rescue teams:[...]
As part of the ongoing dismantling taking place in a lubricant depot, a subcontractor disassembled aerial pipes connected to the depot network as well as their concrete foundations. During these operations, the removal of one of the blocks led to[...]
Around 2 pm, inside a company storing fireworks (net weight: 300 tonnes / gross weight: 2,000 tonnes), a fire broke out during an unloading operation on a 40-foot container subsequent to the mishandling of a box filled with fireworks rockets.[...]
In a chemical plant, a fire broke out at 12.59 pm in a substation supplying a hydrazine hydrate unit. An electrical fault on a cooling water pump caused a generalised short circuit on an electrical tower. The fire alarm was[...]
During security testing conducted by the operator in the presence of the inspection of classified facilities, 2 shut-off valves did not operate at the tractor-trailer unloading station of an LPG depot. In the event of an anomaly, these positive safety[...]
A leak detected late on a pipeline (10'', 2 bar) serving a port petrochemical site along the Juliana canal was the caused 3 000 m³ (2500 tonnes) of methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) to be released thus polluting soil and[...]
In the bitumen storage and loading/unloading unit at a refinery, a 12-m high tank installed on the site for 30 years featuring a floating roof, a capacity of 1,200 m3 and a heating coil, suddenly ruptured at the level of[...]
In a chemical plant, an explosion occurred when a glyoxylic acid production line using the ozonisation technique was re-started. The facility was destroyed a year ago by an explosion followed by a fire (ARIA 25337). The internal emergency plan and the[...]
The gas pipe connecting Zeebrugge to the Franco-Belgian border exploded violently in an industrial zone. Around 8.30 am, a leak was detected by the hissing sound made by the escaping, still odourless at that stage. The emergency services arrived for[...]
Analyses carried out on the residual water at the discharge point of a waste water treatment plant at a chemical plant manufacturing a basic organic product revealed that the thresholds of the standards stipulated by prefectural order had been significantly[...]
