ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

A woman in China was lucky to escape injury this month when the public toilet she was using exploded.

The incident occurred when sparks from shoddy electrical wiring ignited the methane gas stored in the septic tank.

The woman was left unharmed due to the construction of the toilet, situated in the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang. China has been making the switch from traditional hole-in-the-ground toilets to Western-style stalls, and the lavatory in question had low brick walls built around the aperture. These walls protected the woman from the full effects of the explosion.

This is not the first time an exploding toilet has hit the news. Two years ago a woman was taken to hospital when a lavatory in the General Services Administration building in Washington DC blew up. The explosion occurred due to a mechanical failure that led to a high air pressure build-up in the domestic water system.

And in another US incident, four urinals exploded in one day in the washrooms of a General Services Administration building in Memphis, Tennessee. These urinals had an old-fashioned pedal that needed to be depressed after use - but the explosions occurred when users attempted to do so. One washroom user sustained a serious knee injury as a result of the incident.