Chemical Safety Headlines =46rom Google
Monday, November 28, 2011 8:10:46 AM
A service of the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety
Table of Contents (15 articles)
BLAST AT RESTAURANT IN MALL
Tags: Malaysia, public, explosion, response, unknown_chemical
CHEMICAL FIRE AS TRUCK BURNS IN NORTH QUEENSLAND
Tags: Australia, transportation, fire, response, ammonium_nitrate
LOCKDOWN AT HOSPITAL LIFTED, INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY
Tags: us_KY, public, release, injury, unknown_chemical
12 PARK PLACE MALL STORES CLOSE EARLY BECAUSE OF ODOR
Tags: us_AZ, public, release, response, unknown_chemical
BOAT EXPLOSION INJURES 8 IN HUNTINGTON HARBOUR
Tags: us_CA, public, explosion, injury, gasoline
FIRE BREAKS OUT AT KU SCIENCE BUILDING
Tags: us_KS, laboratory, fire, response, solvent
OFFICIALS FAILED TO ENFORCE FIRE CODE
Tags: us_TN, industrial, fire, response, dust, illegal, follow-up
GM=92S CHEVY VOLT PROBED BY U.S. AS DAMAGED BATTERIES CATCH FIRE IN TESTING
Tags: public, fire, response, batteries
MASSIVE CHEMICAL WAREHOUSE FIRE IN GUANGZHOU -- NTDTV.COM Tags: China, industrial, explosion, response, HCl
TWO PEOPLE HURT IN CORK EXPLOSION
Tags: Ireland, industrial, explosion, injury, acetylene
TRIVALLEY CENTRAL
Tags: us_AZ, laboratory, fire, injury, potassium_permanganate, sulfuric_acid
FIRE BREAKS OUT AT CLINTON CHEMICAL PLANT
Tags: us_OK, industrial, fire, response, unknown_chemical
CREWS WORK TO CLEAN UP CHEMICAL SPILL IN WEST FARGO ON KFYR-TV NORTH DAKOTA'S NBC NEWS LEADER
Tags: us_ND, industrial, fire, response, acids
CHLORINATION DEVICE EXPLODES AT SMSU
Tags: us_MN, education, explosion, response, pool_chemicals
6000 RESIDENTS EVACUATED DUE TO CHEMICAL PLANT EXPLOSION IN CHINA
Tags: China, industrial, explosion, environmental, HCl
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BLAST AT RESTAURANT IN MALL
Tags: Malaysia, public, explosion, response, unknown_chemical
KUALA LUMPUR - A restaurant at the ground floor of the Maju Junction Shopping Mall caught fire in an explosion believed to be due to a gas leak.
A distress call was received at about 11.25pm, said City Fire and Rescue Department operations assistant director Azizan Ismail.
"A fire engine from the Chow Kit fire station was immediately dispatched to the scene and found that the explosion occurred due to a leak in a gas pipe in the restaurant's kitchen.
"The severity of the explosion caused the glass doors and ceiling at the restaurant to break and collapse," he said yesterday.
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CHEMICAL FIRE AS TRUCK BURNS IN NORTH QUEENSLAND
Tags: Australia, transportation, fire, response, ammonium_nitrate
A TRUCK carrying 30 tonnes of ammonium nitrate has caught fire and is burning on a north Queensland road.
Authorities have set up a 1km exclusion zone around the truck, which has been burning since about 3pm (AEST), on the Suttor Development Road at Fort Cooper, northwest of Nebo, a Department of Community Safety spokesman said.
Authorities are waiting for the fire to burn out, and police say they expect the road to be closed for some time.
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LOCKDOWN AT HOSPITAL LIFTED, INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY
Tags: us_KY, public, release, injury, unknown_chemical
Officials placed St. Joseph Hospital in London on lockdown Sunday night after a family of five from Jackson County walked in suffering from symptoms apparently due to chemical contamination.
Kentucky Emergency Management officials say the family of five drove themselves to the hospital from HWY-89 South in McKee. They arrived at the hospital around 8 p.m., suffering from symptoms including throat irritation, shortness of breath, headache and burning skin. Shortly after the family arrived, four ER workers, including a doctor, began experiencing similar symptoms. The hospital was temporarily placed on lockdown and all nine people were decontaminated in the hospitals decon area. All nine people are reportedly recovering.
The lockdown has since been lifted.
Investigators say they have not determined the exact source of the chemical. The family reported coming in contact with a stray pit bull shortly before experiencing the symptoms and officials are looking into the dog as a possible source of the contamination.
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12 PARK PLACE MALL STORES CLOSE EARLY BECAUSE OF ODOR
Tags: us_AZ, public, release, response, unknown_chemical
TUCSON, AZ (KOLD) - Twelve Park Place Mall stores closed early Sunday as a precaution after shoppers complained of a foul chemical odor, Tucson Fire spokesperson Trish Tracy said.
The mall has been doing remodeling, and the odor came from working being done on the north side of the shopping center, Tracy said.
The incident started around 4:15 p.m., Tracy said.
All remaining stores at the mall were scheduled to stay open until 6 p.m., mall spokesperson Jan Howard said. The entire mall will open as usual Monday morning.
The Thanksgiving holiday weekend is one of the busiest of the year.
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BOAT EXPLOSION INJURES 8 IN HUNTINGTON HARBOUR
Tags: us_CA, public, explosion, injury, gasoline
HUNTINGTON BEACH =96 A boat exploded in Huntington Harbour about 11:30 a.m. Saturday, injuring eight people aboard, the Sheriff's Harbor Patrol said.
Nine people, ranging in age from teens to 50, were on the 26-foot power boat when it exploded, Sheriff's Deputy William Nelson said. Eight were injured and have been taken to hospitals, he said.ADVERTISEMENT
The nine people were headed to Long Beach, Nelson said. The boat was two to three minutes away from the harbor's main public launching ramp when the driver noticed gasoline leaking and commented to the passengers that they should turn back. That's when the explosion occurred, Nelson said.
"They didn't get very far at all when they started having engine trouble," Huntington Beach Fire Capt. Bob Culhane said. The engine had been sputtering, he said.
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FIRE BREAKS OUT AT KU SCIENCE BUILDING
Tags: us_KS, laboratory, fire, response, solvent
LAWRENCE, Kan. -- Firefighters responded to a fire at Malott Hall on the University of Kansas campus early Saturday.
Crews said they were called to the building, which primarily houses science labs, after a fire was reported on the fifth floor at about 7:30 a.m.
Firefighters got the fire out a short time later. There were no injuries and investigators have not said how the fire started.
University spokesman Jack Martin said the fire damaged one lab, and left water damage in some surrounding classrooms.
Changes in water pressure in the building set off fire alarms in Watson Library and Eaton Hall before the fire was extinguished.
Earlier this month, the building was evacuated after people reported a strong chemical odor that was later blamed on floor solvent.
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OFFICIALS FAILED TO ENFORCE FIRE CODE
Tags: us_TN, industrial, fire, response, dust, illegal, follow-up
Despite a long history of emergency response calls to Hoeganaes=92 Airport Road facility, the Gallatin Fire Department failed to enforce its own fire code and conduct ongoing inspections related to combustible dust-producing operations at the plant, records show.
The City of Gallatin has adopted the 2006 International Fire Code as the standard it enforces. Chapter 13 of that code is a one-page document that outlines in general terms how fire departments should handle facilities that produce combustible dust, such as Hoeganaes.
The chapter says two things: that open flames or the use of spark-producing equipment is prohibited in areas where combustible dust is stored, manufactured, or handled; and that accumulation of combustible dust in buildings should be kept to a minimum, and removed in such a way that would not cause it to be suspended in the air.
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GM=92S CHEVY VOLT PROBED BY U.S. AS DAMAGED BATTERIES CATCH FIRE IN TESTING
Tags: public, fire, response, batteries
General Motors Co. (GM)=92s electric plug- in hybrid Chevrolet Volt is the subject of a U.S. safety probe after its lithium-ion batteries, supplied by LG Chem Ltd., caught fire in crash tests.
A Volt caught fire three weeks after a side-impact crash test May 12 while parked at a testing center in Wisconsin, leading regulators to conduct more tests. Volt battery packs were damaged in three more tests last week, causing two fires, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said yesterday in a statement on its website.
=93The agency is concerned that damage to the Volt=92s batteries as part of three tests that are explicitly designed to replicate real-world crash scenarios have resulted in fire,=94 NHTSA said in the statement.
The U.S. regulator said it doesn=92t know of any crashes outside of testing that have led to battery-related fires in Volts or other cars powered by lithium-ion batteries. Chevy Volt owners whose vehicles have not been in a serious crash don=92t need to be concerned, the agency said.
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MASSIVE CHEMICAL WAREHOUSE FIRE IN GUANGZHOU -- NTDTV.COM Tags: China, industrial, explosion, response, HCl
An explosion ripped through a warehouse at a chemical plant in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on Thursday. It=92s forced the evacuation of about 6000 residents living nearby. No injures or death have been reported.
It happened at about 1:30 in Thursday afternoon at a storage facility at the Futian Chemical Company in Guangzhou.
Ninety firefighters and 15 fire engines were dispatched, and the situation was brought under control in about two hours, according to the Panyu Safety Supervision Bureau.
A small amount of hydrogen chloride, a toxic gas, has been detected in the air in neighboring areas, and evacuated residents have yet to return home.
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TWO PEOPLE HURT IN CORK EXPLOSION
Tags: Ireland, industrial, explosion, injury, acetylene
Two people have been injured in a explosion at an gas bottling plant on the outskirts of Cork city this morning.
The explosion happened at the Irish Oxygen plant at Waterfall around 11.20am when it's understood an acetylene cylinder exploded.
Five units of Cork City and Ballincollig Fire Brigade and four HSE ambulances, as well as three other HSE emergency vehicles including an advanced paramedic also responded to the accident.
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TRIVALLEY CENTRAL
Tags: us_AZ, laboratory, fire, injury, potassium_permanganate, sulfuric_acid
Tuesday at 3:08 p.m. HazMat teams from the Casa Grande and Eloy fire departments responded to Mission Heights Preparatory High School, 1376 E. Cottonwood Lane, after a science experiment resulted in an endothermic reaction. A fire department spokesman said students were conducting an experiment to see how chemicals mixed together create heat. The chemicals used were sulfuric acid, isopentyl alcohol and potassium permanganate. A fire ignited and was put out before the fire departments arrived. The school was safely evacuated and no one was reported hurt.
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FIRE BREAKS OUT AT CLINTON CHEMICAL PLANT
Tags: us_OK, industrial, fire, response, unknown_chemical
CLINTON, Okla. -- Crews from several departments were at the scene of a fire at B.J. Services chemical plant on Wednesday night.
Clinton, Weatherford and Custer City fire crews were at the scene of the fire in the 800 block of Marshall Road, which broke out about 9:30 p.m.
The fire was out as of 11:30 p.m., but a large smoke plume was in the air, which prompted evacuations of homes in the area.
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CREWS WORK TO CLEAN UP CHEMICAL SPILL IN WEST FARGO ON KFYR-TV NORTH DAKOTA'S NBC NEWS LEADER
Tags: us_ND, industrial, fire, response, acids
Cleanup crews are getting rid of a large pool of acid from an overnight fire and chemical spill in West Fargo.
Someone driving by spotted the fire at K&K Galvanizing just after 10:30 last night, and firefighters knew right away they were dealing with corrosive acids and chemicals. The company uses them to galvanize metals.
The initial response focused on containing any spill and preventing contamination to areas around the building.
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CHLORINATION DEVICE EXPLODES AT SMSU
Tags: us_MN, education, explosion, response, pool_chemicals
MARSHALL - Part of the Southwest Minnesota State University campus was sealed off on Wednesday while the Marshall Fire Department and the Southwest Chemical Assessment Team responded to an explosion in the university's swimming pool area. A plastic container called a chemical erosion feeder, used to keep swimming pools clean, exploded in the lower mechanical room adjacent to the swimming pool shortly after 3 p.m. on Wednesday.
No one was injured, but CAT responders donned protective suits in order to remove hazardous material from the building.
SMSU Associate Director of University Relations Jim Tate told the Independent the container - about 3 feet tall and 8 inches in diameter - had been filled Wednesday with 3-inch chlorine tablets instead of the normal 1-inch tablets because the school apparently had run out of the 1-inch tablets. The container wasn't filled all the way to the top as it normally would've been, Tate said, so the volume in the container was the same.
Tate said he was told by the physical plant employee who was working on the pool at the time that about 15 to 20 minutes after the "chlorinator" went back online, it exploded.
"It was the same chlorine, same volume of tablets in the feeder," Tate said. "Nothing changed except the size of the tablets."
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6000 RESIDENTS EVACUATED DUE TO CHEMICAL PLANT EXPLOSION IN CHINA
Tags: China, industrial, explosion, environmental, HCl
Around 6,000 people were evacuated Thursday after an explosion at a chemical plant near the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.
The accident occurred in the afternoon at the Futian Chemical Company in Panyu district, local news agency said.
Residents were evacuated after =93a small amount=94 of toxic hydrogen chloride and sodium gas was detected in the air following the blast.
As of 7:30 PM Thursday, the gas dispersed and was no threat to people, according to an environmental monitoring worker.
The explosion of factory buildings occurred at around 2:30 PM. Firefighters continued to spray foam to the plant an hour after the blast. Almost all of the windows of a 5-story dormitory next to the plant were broken.
The blast caused no casualty for the chemical plant had not been operating since last year.
A local resident told reporter that he smelled pungent odor from time to time which gave him a headache and a sore throat.
Safety supervision bureau said the blast might be caused by human negligence.
