vehicle explodes at Brazilian gas station

Shocking moment vehicle's illegal natural gas tank explodes at Brazilian gas station

The gas tank on a Volkswagen sedan exploded in a bizarre incident caught on camera in northeastern Brazil Wednesday, with authorities confirming that an illegally installed fuel cylinder was to blame for the blast.

The owner of the vehicle had stopped to refuel the car with natural gas at a station in Fortaleza, Ceará, on Wednesday when the explosion tore the car apart.

The gas station camera showed the driver standing in front of the car while the attendant waited nearby for the fueling to complete.

Moments later, the gas tank blew up and destroyed the rear part of the car.

The car owner could be seen running away from the explosion while the station worker turned off the gas and avoided further catastrophe.

According to Brazilian news outlet G1, the gas cylinder landed about 200 feet from the gas station, damaged a wall and also struck a car in the area.

The owner of the wrecked Volkswagen and the gas station worker didn’t suffer any injuries.

Fortaleza’s Civil Police opened an investigation into the theft of the gas tank after the local fire department was unable to locate it at the scene hours after the incident.




Brazil’s National Union of Vehicle Inspection Companies told G1 that the explosion was the byproduct of a “sequence of errors” involving the owner of the car and the gas station.

“The (owner) installed an irregular cylinder (gas tank), did not carry out the mandatory safety inspection,” agency director Marco Neves said. “And the gas station did not require the presentation of the inspection seal issued by one of the technical institutions accredited by INMETRO (National Institute of Metrology, Standardization, and Industrial Quality).”