Credits: A. Kumar

Alex writes: There was an explosion last week in my research room. No one was hurt and the effects were contained very quickly due to an excellent response of the fire team. Accidents can happen but here the consequences can be much more serious.

For ESA research I need to use lots of batteries that I had been recharging over the weekend. I must have slipped in over 30 Ni-Cad rechargeable batteries in their chargers over the course of the past week.

On Sunday night routine started to creep in and without realising and having read only ‘rechargeable’, I put a Lithium Ion battery in the Ni-Cad charger. I left it charging behind me whilst I continued to work on my computer late at night.

I got up and went to speak to a Concordia crew-member in another room. I was just walking past my lab to turn off the light and go to bed.

Suddenly a bright blue flash blinded me and a loud explosion broke the silence of the base. Toxic smoke filled the room and the fire alarms started ringing.

Needless to say I was shocked.

My trusty crewmates were out of their beds on the scene quickly to extinguish the fire. We ventilated the room and I checked that I was OK. Luckily nobody was injured, including myself. I still think about what could have happened if I had gone to check the battery five seconds earlier and been closer to the explosion, or had not left the room. On Concordia no one can be rushed to a specialist hospital – I am the doctor and we are limited in our medical capability.

Credits: A. Kumar

I have definitely learnt a lesson. My colleagues on the base have taken the explosion in good spirits. During evening dinner I was at the end of many good-natured jokes.

The next night at 0130 hours, the fire alarm was activated again. We rushed into one of our colleagues rooms. Humidity in Concordia is so low, we often use humidifiers to improve the quality of our sleep. He had turned his on so high, it was like a greenhouse in his room and the humidity had tricked the fire sensors into thinking there was a fire. We all went to bed thinking the same thing – its all good fire practice…