UPS explosion at Indonesia Data Center building in Duren Tiga, Jakarta

What happened

At about 19.00 local time on Sunday 12 August 2012, one of the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units on the second floor of the Indonesia Data Center (IDC) building in Duren Tiga, South Jakarta, exploded. Following standard operating procedure, staff used fire extinguishers to put out the flames, but smoke continued to rise from the unit. About ten minutes later firefighters arrived and sprayed water on the source of the smoke in the UPS room.

To prevent sparks and short circuits, the main power supply to all eight UPS units in the building was switched off, and all servers were shut down. This took a number of Indonesian websites offline. The building holds 600 server racks. Power was restored in stages, starting with lighting and air conditioning before the servers, and water on the second floor had to be cleared in the dark. Conditions were reported to be returning to normal the same day.

Contributing factors

The operator said the UPS exploded while its load was still low. The vendor gave no cause, such as a cable short circuit. No cause has been confirmed in the source. A police laboratory investigation was expected to take up to a month.

Lessons learned

1. Plan for a UPS failure that spreads smoke and water into the room, including how to isolate all UPS units when one is damaged.
2. Test staged restart procedures for servers, lighting and cooling, so that recovery after a full shutdown can be carried out safely, including in darkness.
3. Agree in advance with the fire service how it will approach a UPS room, including electrical isolation before water is applied.
4. Preserve the failed unit and its fault data so that the vendor and investigators can establish the cause.

More lessons on spacing, layout and fire spread, worker safety and safe systems of work, fire suppression and firefighting, investigation and fleet-wide checks, from every incident on the register.

Source

inet.detik.com