OT: another tragedy tonight in Waco (fertilizer plant explosion)
Video: http://bit.ly/12oheZs
Thoughts are with anyone in the Waco area tonight
April 18th, 2013 at 12:11 PM ^
The storage vessels would've served as pressure vessels, the ammonia (from the fertilizer) as an oxidizer, then all you need is a fuel... Usually when people make a bomb the fuel is gasoline, here it was anything that was kicked up by the initiall fire. Once the oxidizers and fuel were exposed you get rapid chemical combustion; an explosion.
This tragedy almost certainly falls 100% into the catigory of an industrial accident. Though safety of these facilities (in western countries anyway) has been impoved immensely the hazardous / flamable / combustable nature of the products still entails great risk.
My heart goes out to the families of those injured or worse.
Seems like you see this more at smaller companies in the US like this one. Typically the major chemical companies have the technical resources and cash to put in the right safeguards. You'll see these major disasters at small to mid-size companies who might not have the money, resources, time, knowledge, etc to put as much effort into their safety programs
I live in Waco (grad student at Baylor, did undergrad at UM) and I was shocked to see the news last night. The explosion was felt all the way in Arlington, roughly 100 miles away, and seismographs in Amarillo, 400 miles away, picked up the shock. Fortunately, all 130+ residents of the nursing home next to the plant were evacuated minutes before the explosion, and it happened at night so no students were in the middle school on the other side of the plant.
One of the coolest things about Central Texans is the community they feel for each other, and people have been standing in line in stormy downpours all morning to donate blood. It seems like every business, church, community center, or whatever in Waco has opened its doors to families that need a place to sleep. Continued thoughts and prayers for those in West are definitely appreciated, but I thought you all would like to know that the surrounding towns have totally stepped up to comfort as best we can.