General News Texas Fertilizer Plant Explodes - Many Dead

This is so sad. I hope they are wrong and not as many people are dead, but apparently it leveled a good portion of the town :-/

 

That is not an exaggeration, the area for a 5 block radius was leveled and there are fires.

Many of the victims will have to be transported to other, larger, communities because West is too small to handle them all.

I think that there might also be a 3rd tank of the explosive chemical. A propane tank and a chemical tank caused the explosion.

 

A lot of 'homemade' explosives (and even professional ones) have been made of refined versions of the compounds that they have in near raw form there. I've seen test demos of that stuff and it's downright devastating.

I'm not saying that it's going to be bad, but the outlook isn't good.. :icon_sad:

Hopefully they saved as many people as they could have.

I doubt any motives behind it, but there is always a chance. Factory fires, explosions and stuff goes on all the time though and with high death tolls in several cases.

Man this week just goes on and on .

 

Anyone who remembers the Oklahoma city bombing, that was only about 3 half-full drums of this stuff. those tanks hold a LOT more than that, and there are several at any good sized factory. There is a good possibility that this was the result of equipment malfunctioning. I hope that the death toll doesn't rise to far above the 70 or so that they have reported.


In a side note,
I plan to work as a chemical engineer after college, many of them work in factories like that.

 

This really hasn't been a good week.

 

Ok, yep. There is still at least one more unexploded tank at that plant, which is still on fire.

 

you better make sure the factories is built safe.. and in case bad things happen, don't casue damage to civilians

don't forget, there's INTERNATIONAL news that you can frown at every single day..
it's just home front news get reported more

 

Yep,
Engineers can only design equipment to be very very very safe, they can't design equipment that doesn't break down and malfunction. Entropy sucks.

 

I just turned on the news, and I've seen the video of the explosion, and my heart is absolutely broken right now.

---------- Post added 18th Apr 2013 at 12:33 AM ----------

+1

 

And... That's 2 explosions in the US this week.. (I'm not saying they are related, I'm just saying that the US has had a bad week...)

This is really sad... I hope that they got as many people out of there as they could. (I also hope that they evacuate the nursing home that is nearby. I mean, the air quality sucks and some of those people already have problems breathing.


Also, to put in perspective how large this explosion was, it registered as a 2.1 earthquake.

 

This is so horrible

 

So, haven't sat and listened to the news yet, but please tell me this was at least an accident and not another pre-planned, malicious attack? :eusa_doh:


Ugh.

 

Based on what I've seen and heard on the tv and online, there is no inclination that this was a terrorist attack.

---------- Post added 18th Apr 2013 at 01:30 AM ----------

This is especially frightening to me because I know EXACTLY where this town is at and I've driven through there countless times and I live within an hour of it.

 

Here is the same video, but someone has slowed it down. It really helps give a better perspective of how huge this explosion was...

[YOUTUBE]M3iL2EhVsTs[/YOUTUBE]

It also sounds like the girl suffered from a perforated eardrum. Sadly, that's not uncommon when you're near explosions. I heard some of the doctors in Boston say some of the people there suffered the same as well.

 

It just seems like to big a coincidence. A FERTILISER plant NEAR CIVILIAN BUILDINGS not only catches fire but EXPLODES not a week after THE BOSTON BOMBINGS.

I wouldn't be surprised if its a nationwide bombing campaign beginning.

 

Fucking hell. I thought the fire was the end of the explosion, and FUCK.


I hope this was really an accident. While of course it doesn't change the fact that there are so many dead, it will be much, much worse if this was not an accident, perhaps connected to boston.

 

I am fairly sure water, when mixed with Nitric Acid and Ammonia, does not equal explosion. But then again, I'm only doing NCEA level 1 science, so what would I know?