Balloon fireball injures 140 in Armenia: More than 140 people have been injured after gas-filled balloons exploded at a concert in the Armenian capital ahead of parliamentary polls, officials say.
"The balloons exploded and caught fire after people holding the bunches released them from their hands into the air," a witness told AFP.
From the witness statement, it can be said that the friction between balloons in the bunch while going up could have caused this. As hydrogen can easily diffuse through rubber, it could have caught fire from the friction as the ignition energy for hydrogen is as low as 0.0017 mJ and this could have resulted in bursting of balloons and fireball. One may recall the famous Hindenburg disaster in 1937. Only the quantity of flammable substance differs but reason can be same, that of static charge generated due to friction.
Such incidents were also reported at several places. In an incident, the hydrogen balloons burst in the hands of children who suffered burn injuries.
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