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By Carla Regan: Two workers were taken to
hospital following a chemical explosion at a factory in
Staffordshire.
A 39-year-old man was reportedly thrown two metres in
the blast at Aegean on Walkmill Lane, Cannock, and suffered skin
irritation.
He was taken away by paramedics in a
neck collar and spinal board to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in
Birmingham.
The second man, aged 29, also suffered skin
irritation.
Both men were treated at the scene by crews and sent
to hospital for further treatment and assessment.
A
38-strong crew of firefighters were called to the scene just before
midday on Friday November 5.
A West Midlands Ambulance
Service spokeswoman said: =93Crews arrived to find that there had been a
small explosion involving a gas chemical at the
factory.=94
Group Manager Del Roberts said: =93There was a small
explosion involving corrosive gases from an industrial process on
site.
-----------------------
Firefighters battled to keep control of a massive
warehouse blaze after 280 tonnes of gas canisters exploded on a
North-East industrial park. Chris Fay reports.
INCREDIBLY, no one was hurt as explosions ripped through
Stiller Warehousing and Distribution at 1pm on Friday, where 7,500
pallets of aerosol cans in a warehouse caught fire.
Firefighters remain at the site, on the Aycliffe Business
Park, in County Durham, damping down.
-----------------------
Sharjah // A fire tore through storage buildings in
Sharjah's industrial area last night.
The blaze
started at about 7pm in buildings owned by the Al Safeer Group of
Company, located in the city's Industrial Area 2.
As the
fire spread to neighbouring buildings, firemen were struggling to bring
the blaze under control.
They were unsure whether there were any casualties.
The cause of the fire was not clear.
"We have so far not found
any injured," Col Waheed al Serkal, the Director of Sharjah Civil
Defence, said last night. "We can confirm if there are no victims only
after the fire is completely brought under control."
Fire is a
constant threat in the emirate's industrial areas, where chemical
solvents are often stored.
The emirate experienced several major fires last
summer, including the those that destroyed five warehouses at the
National Paints factory and the Al Kuwait apartment
building.
-----------------------
CONNERSVILLE, Ind. =97 Crews are fighting a fire at an
old factory tonight in Connersville.
A dispatcher in Connersville
confirmed to WTHR=92s Eyewitness News that firefighters were at the
scene of a fire at an old factory. A resident reported there is a
chemical reclamation plant attached to the building that was on
fire.
Officials say the building that caught fire once held
a company called Creative Fixtures, which made small wooden parts. That
company closed about seven years ago.
Firefighters reportedly had the fire contained in the
Creative Fixtures building, but were concerned about it spreading to a
building to the south. That building houses
Superior Chemicals and is still in
operation.
-----------------------
A day after evacuating a 200-metre area around a
Radisson Drive home for what later turned out not to be a public safety
hazard, the fire department said it acted prudently.
Homes and
schools were cleared after medical staff believed they had come into
contact with organophosphate after treating an elderly
man.
Officials were worried the man was exposed to the
deadly chemical and others could be at risk, too.
"I think
what you do is deal with the information you have at the time," said
spokesman Brian McAsey.
"That information told us there might be a great risk
to human health and life and we went about doing our protocols. I think
we did the right thing."
-----------------------
BELLEVUE,
Pa. -- Hazmat teams were in Bellevue Saturday morning after residents
complained of a strong gasoline odor.
Fire departments responded to the 300 block of Union
Avenue at 12:30 a.m. Saturday after several residents smelled
gasoline.
At 2:30 a.m., Hazmat crews
were called to the scene to investigate.
Hazmat investigated all morning to try to find the
source of the odor that was coming from the sewer system. Crews were
gong door-to-door trying to locate the source of the
smell.
-----------------------
ADAMS
COUNTY - All evacuations were lifted in connection to a Commerce City
hazmat situation on Friday night that forced people to leave more than
200 homes after investigators determined that an unknown substance
leaking from several barrels was not a threat.
The Adams
County Sheriff's Office says several barrels were found off of 80th
Avenue near Monaco Street. They were found around 4:30 p.m. near an
abandoned chemical plant.
Just before 9 p.m., investigators determined the
substance leaking from the barrels was a petroleum-based product and was
not threatening to those in the area.
Area
residents had called the fire department earlier to complain about the
bad smell.
-----------------------
UNIVERSITY CITY - November 6, 2010 - (WPVI) --
Firefighters responded to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for a jet
fuel leak.
The call came in around two
o'clock Saturday morning... a Pennstar medical chopper was leaking fuel
on the helipad atop the hospital.
Investigators say some kind
of mechanical problem caused the fuel leak.
Firefighters contained the leak, and hazardous materials
crews brought in oil-dry to soak up the spill.
-----------------------
Cape Mail
was evacuated on Friday morning after workers became ill and emergency
calls were made to report a possible gass leak, the Cape Town disaster
risk management centre said.
=93Reports were received of persons that overcome by
an alleged smell of gas and resulted in vomiting,=94 said centre
spokesman Wilfred Solomons-Johannes.
He said in a statement that
city activated the necessary emergency response agencies to the incident
in order to establish the source of the smell and to administer medical
treatment.
The HazMat teams from the fire and rescue services
established the smell was caused by broken ink cartridges and other
items that were undelivered and not collected, and returned to Cape
Mail, he said.
The fire and rescue, disaster risk management centre,
Metro EMS, SAPS, Netcare, ER24, and Discovery Life were present at the
scene.
-----------------------
Neighborhoods near 80th and Rosemary in Adams County
were evacuated for two hours because of a hazardous materials situation
stemming from an unknown liquid leaking out of above-ground storage
containers Friday evening.
The
evacuation area boundaries are 80th to 86th and Monaco to Brighton Blvd.
and includes about 210 people. The evacuation was cleared just before 9
p.m. Friday.
Some liquid coming out of the storage containers in a
fenced-off area near a closed chemical plant prompted the hazmat
investigation. There is also an unknown odor in the area believed to be
connected to the barrels.
-----------------------
Evacuees are returning to their homes in southeast
Calgary after a chemical leak scare on Friday.
Readings
at a house in Radisson Heights, where authorities suspected chemicals
caused an elderly man to fall ill, have revealed only low levels of
chlorine from a neighbour's hot tub.
The house, yard and vehicles
were searched, but no chemical leak was found.
Officials
now say there's no risk to the public.
At about
7:30 a.m. Friday, a Calgary woman found her husband in distress,
officials said.
The man was taken to the Peter Lougheed Centre with
respiratory problems, and traces of potentially dangerous chemicals were
detected on a doctor's shirt and a paramedic's shoes. Hospital staff
called 911. Fire crews and hazardous materials specialists checked the
area around the man's home in the 1400 block of Radisson Drive, near
Robson Crescent S.E.
-----------------------
NEW
BEDFORD =97 After being closed for three days of cleanup following a
small chemical fire Monday night, classes will resume today at Keith
Middle School.
The school was closed to the public Tuesday, Wednesday
and Thursday. Before today=92s reopening, Mayor Scott W. Lang tried to
assuage parents=92 concerns during an open house at the school Thursday
afternoon.
He told the group of about three dozen who turned out
that the multiple air quality tests performed in the last three days
have shown "no issues whatsoever."
He said there will be a
review of the district=92s protocol surrounding the storage of
chemicals. The small fire started in a storage cabinet that contained
chemicals typically used in a science lab.
"I=92m
not a chemist ... but I can tell you it won=92t happen again," Lang
said.
The school replaced ceiling tiles near the affected
area and removed the affected cabinets and chemicals in them from
first-floor "prep room," Lang said. The prep room, according to the
mayor, still needs cleanup work.
-----------------------
OCEANSIDE =97 Hazardous material crews on Friday
finished cleaning up a huge cache of potentially dangerous chemicals
stored behind a house near Camp Pendleton that were used to make
gopher-eradication products and possibly other devices.
Acting on
a tip, Oceanside firefighters on Thursday went to the house, which
recently had been foreclosed on, and found four storage buildings and an
underground storage area, all with containers of solid and liquid
compounds and chemicals, Battalion Chief Rob Dunham said
Friday.
The site on San Simeon Street, near Camp Pendleton=92s
front gate, immediately qualified for federal and state Superfund
cleanup money. It includes Oceanside city property, where the four
storage buildings were illegally built, officials said.
-----------------------
Back in the mists of time, I was approached with a
crazy proposition - would I help co-edit a book on nanotechnologies
regulation! In a
moment of weakness I said yes, and a little more than two and a half
years later, the book is finally about to hit the
shelves.
I actually think the resulting International Handbook
on Regulating Nanotechnologies rather a useful, coherent and engaging
collection of chapters - my co-editors Di Bowman and Graeme Hodge did
a wonderful job encouraging a bunch of top thinkers in the field to
write under occasionally whimsical but always relevant
titles.
To whet your appetite prior to the book=92s release
sometime in November, here=92s a sneak peak at the
contents:
