Event
- Event ID
- 82
- Quality
- Description
The incident occurred while delivering seven compressed hydrogen cylinders to a customer site.
The store employee had already removed four cylinders from the delivery truck and carried them upright about 2 meters away. When he let them go, a "bang" sound was heard near the valve and the containers burst into flames, injuring the employee. The containers continued to burn until the gas was completely released.- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- fire
- Macro-region
- Asia
- Country
- Japan
- Date
- Component involved
- valve (generic)
- Failure mode
- rupture & ignition
- Initiating cause
- material degradation (generic)
- Root CAUSE analysis
The INITIATING CAUSE was the sudden failure of (one of the) valves mounted on CGH2 cylinders.
According to the KHK report, the ROOT CAUSE was an inspection failure.- Root causes
- Date entry in HIAD
- 13/07/2026
Facility
- Application
- Hydrogen transport and distribution
- Sub-application
- CGH2 cylinders truck
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
cylinder, valve
- Process temperature range [C]
- ambient temperature (-50°C to +50°C)
- Location type
- Unknown
- Location
- unknown
- Operational condition
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 1
- Post-event summary
Minor injury
Lesson Learnt
- Lesson Learnt
The only possible general conclusion which can be drawn from this incident is that at the time of its occurrence (years 60’s) the safety provisions required for the transport of high pressure cylinders were not yet well developed.
In-depth data
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Release temperature [°C]
- 25
- Probable IGNITION SOURCE
References
- Sources categories
- KHK
- Reference & weblink
High Pressure Gas Accident Cases Database of the KHK (High Pressure Gas Safety Association):
https://www.khk.or.jp/public_information/incident_investigation/hpg_inc…
(accessed May 2025)
