How base stations explode

From 2012 to 2014, explosions occurred at base stations of cellular operators in several regions of Russia. They had nothing to do with the attacks, there were no media reports. Some brief mention of this can be found only in industry forums and social networks.

One of our readers had to work on eliminating such accidents. According to him, climatic telecommunication cabinets exploded in all incidents. Photos from the explosion sites he sent to us.

Thermal cabinets, where the batteries were located as if tore apart from the inside.

















It is noteworthy that in all cases, Ericsson telecommunications cabinets SSC-02 exploded. After several explosions, installers of base stations leaving for servicing warned that they could “bomb”. Then they considered that the explosions were due to improper mounting of the batteries. The flue gas tube was bent because of what the gas was accumulating inside the cabinet.

Here is another series of photos of the explosion in the Krasnodar Territory. The kind of batteries that are bursting inside are terrifying.





















All the blame for the explosion laid on the human factor. They say that the fitters assembled crookedly, clamped on the vapor pipe and this is the result.







This is the picture that appeared before the repair crew in Penza.















According to a specialist who worked at the scene of the accident, the cause of the explosion could not be the installation’s “curve”, but an error in production. It turned out that after several explosions (there were four of them altogether), the vendor replaced the control panels of the battery charge rectifiers. Also, the system of ventilation and gas removal has been modernized. The vendor spent half a year on this work, and only in the Krasnodar Territory about 2400 such cabinets were installed.