Fertilizer spill one and a half million liters in volume almost floods Roudemerbach river

Firefighters and rescuers of Luxembourg prevented a natural disaster. On the morning of Monday, September 19, a massive leak occurred at a biogas plant near Gonnering. A sealed container used to ferment fertilizer burst. The mass contained in it immediately began to pour out onto fields close by. And it could quickly flow to the nearby Roudemerbach river.

However, firefighters, rescuers and logistics experts responsible for the supply of equipment quickly arrived on the scene. They were joined by representatives of the French group CBRN. It fights chemical, biological, radiation and nuclear threats. An ambulance was called to the scene, but there were no injuries.

Specialists tried to seal the container. But this wasn’t possible. Therefore, a protective wall was dug by excavators in the field where fertilizer was spilled. And a ditch that the mass that flowed out of the container was collected into. The Water Resources Authority confirmed that no fertilizer had entered the Roudemerbach river.

According to experts, about one and a half million liters of fertilizer spilled out of the container. The breach was not at the bottom of the vault, so some of the mass remained inside.

When the runaway fertilizer drained into the ditch, it was pumped out by trucks. After that, part was distributed to nearby fields, part taken to its place of final storage before use, part returned to another container at the biogas plant. By midnight, the main consequences of the leak were eliminated. Today, September 20, specialists continue to clean up the affected field.