An explosion ripped through a hydrogen fueling station in Norway earlier this week, prompting both Toyota and Hyundai to issue a stop-sale of their hydrogen vehicles in the country.
The station, located in Sandvika, violently exploded resulting in a 500-meter (547 yard) safety zone being established around the site. Thankfully, there was no one at the station at the time of the explosion.
Local publication NRK reports that two people were hospitalized after the shock wave from the explosion caused their car airbags to deploy. Nel, the company operating the station, has closed its other hydrogen fueling stations in Norway as a precautionary measure but says “it is too early to speculate about the cause” of the explosion.
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“I heard a big bang. We were on the beach at Henie Onstad Art Center just across the bay and heard a horrible bang. Then white smoke overturned from the station,” Monica Lid told local media.
In a statement, Toyota Norway manager Espen Olsen said the lack of operational hydrogen filling stations in the country means it is not practical to keep selling its Mirai for the time being.
“We don’t know exactly what happened on the Uno-X drive yet, so we don’t want to speculate. But we stop the sale until we have learned what has happened, and for practical reasons, since it is not possible to fill fuel now.”
Electrive reports that two experts have been flown in from Denmark to support local authorities in their technical investigations to find what triggered the explosion. The station in question was opened in November 2016.