Explosions on the rise

[Kojima]

----------------------------------------------

An oil field exploded in Basra Iraq [Iraq Oil Report ; Published September 20, 2011]; Comment by Starr DiGiacomo

----------------------------------------------

List of comment about gas explosion, in order of posted time; as of 2011-09-01

 

1) SOMERVILLE, Ohio, US; "Investigation continues in house collapse"

2) BAKERSFIELD, Calif. US; "Bakersfield resident hurt in natural gas explosion"

3) Pompton Lakes, NJ, US; "Update: Suspected gas explosion levels home in Pompton Lakes [raw video]"

4) Brantford, Ontario, Canada; "Natural gas explosion levelled Brantford house: fire marshal"

5) Warren, MI, US; "City of Warren Home Explosion Underscores Need for Natural Gas Safety"

6) Castleford, West Yorkshire, UK; "Dramatic footage shows huge gas explosion at Yorkshire home"

7) Warren Park, Harare, Zimbabwe; "2 seriously injured in Warren Park gas explosion"

8) Logan City, south of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia; "Seven children killed in gas explosion at house"

9) Herscher, IL, US; Douglasville, GA, US; "This Week In Natural Gas Leaks and Explosions – Aug. 22, 2011"

10) "Seven children killed in gas explosion at house" [See 8)]

11) Lakeview, MI, US; "Explosion inside Lakeview house causes fire, couple escapes with minor injuries"

12) Newborough, Victoria, Australia; "Gas blast destroys Newborough garage"

13) Cato, Montcalm, MI, US; "Couple escapes house explosion"

14) Glenrock, Converse, WY, US; "Oilfield explosion claims three"

15) St. Augustine, Fla, US; "Gas Station Explosion Site in St. Augustine now 'Stable'"

 

----------------------------------------------

* Comment by Starr DiGiacomo

We'll be seeing an uptick in unusual home and business gas explosions and I'm trying to locate specific ZT on the matter.  Below is a refresher for the many gas related news articles.

http://zetatalk5.com/index/blog0214.htm

SOZT

Fault lines, when adjusting, do not just rip apart one day during a dramatic earthquake. They most often creep. Laying gas lines along or across a fault line is asking for an accident of this sort. Fault lines are also seldom so clearly delineated that one can go a mile in this or that direction and avoid their action. Where a slip-slide fault such as the San Andreas will often leave a clear line on the surface, this is only the surface action, not what occurs in the rock layers on either side which can fracture for a long way to either side during any movement. The gas company, or the age of the pipes, will be faulted but in truth the finger should be pointed in many directions. The public, who insist on living at such a scenic spot, is to blame. Officials, who zoned for housing are to blame. The public utility company, for allowing gas lines in the area, is to blame. But this will change nothing, while man continues to live on the San Andreas, even as it awakens. EOZT

http://www.zetatalk5.com/ning/18sp2010.htm

SOZT

The danger from radon gas will not be increased as a result of the pole shift. Radon gas is emitted by rock containing uranium, which is degrading. In normal circumstances, where air can circulate, it is disbursed rapidly as is any methane created by decay of organic material. The danger from these gasses comes from confinement - being trapped in a mine, a basement, or beneath the permafrost. The dangers are well known. For methane, it is explosions. An accumulation of methane gas can be identified by the smell of rotten eggs, or as some have described it, dirty socks or cabbage soup. For radon gas the danger is lung cancer, from the continual exposure to the radioactive air. Radon gas is odorless, and cannot be detected except by specialized equipment not in the hands of the average person.

In that the pole shift, or the Earth changes preceding the pole shift, can fracture rock and release pockets of either gas, survivors should be cautious about huddling in bunkers. You are safer out in the open air, or in a trench you have dug that will allow the pole shift winds to pass over you, but nothing to fall on and crush you. The fact that both methane gas and radon gas can accumulate in the bunkers of the elite is one of the reasons we have stated that they have dug their own graves. EOZT

http://www.zetatalk5.com/ning/12mr2011.htm

 

* Comment by Starr DiGiacomo

SOZT

Anyone watching the news, for instance the news on the San Bruno explosion in a distribution line close to the San Andreas Fault line, knows that gas in any form is a danger. Oil and gas refineries explode when rigid piping cracks. Oil or gas wells explode when the ground around them moves. And the gas distribution lines running under cities are no exception. They likewise will explode. Gas lines, whether along the street or within a home, are rigid. In some cases automatic shutoff valves can limit the amount of gas available for an explosion by sensing a drop in pressure, but this is always after the fact. The explosion has already occurred. Utilizing gas on a planet prone to earthquakes was a mistake to begin with, but man never thinks of the consequences when striving for modern conveniences. We have advised turning off the gas at the street, though when the street explodes and your neighbor's homes are on fire you are not likely to escape the holocaust. A better alternative is to live in an area where gas is not available, as in your rural safe location where you will be doing a form of camping while gardening. A campfire at night, for cooking and washing and a bit of friendly light before bed. Nothing explosive. EOZT

http://www.zetatalk5.com/ning/02oc2010.htm

 

* Comment by Starr DiGiacomo

SOZT Answer: It is no accident that the New Madrid fault lies under the Mississippi River near Memphis, as rivers form in lowlands created when land pulls apart, separating the rock fingers and weakening support for the land. Thus, the Ohio River bed also is an indication of where rock fingers will pull apart. Two adjustments in Kentucky, a day apart, are not an accident, but an indication of the speed at which the stretch zone is starting to adjust. Rail lines are frequently an early harbinger of such adjustments, as they run long distances, whereas structures within cities, such as tall buildings, take up relatively little space and have a small footprint. Our warning that imploding cities will be experienced, before the hour of the shift, are in this regard. Be warmed, it will not just be your rail lines and gas and water mains that will shatter and be pulled apart during the stretch. The foundations of your tall buildings will likewise be vulnerable.EOZT

http://www.zetatalk5.com/newsletr/issue008.htm

----------------------------------------------

[Original post on January 20, 2011]

Original title: Gas explosion kills 1, injures 5 in Philadelphia

 

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/19/pennsylvania.gas.explosion/index.h...

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The explosion occurred in Philadelphia's Tacony neighborhood
• The blast killed one utilities worker and injured five other people
• Some of the injuries are serious

(CNN) -- A gas main explosion in Philadelphia Tuesday evening killed one utilities worker and injured five other people, a fire department official said.

Philadelphia Gas Works employees were responding to a gas main break in the city's Tacony neighborhood when the explosion occurred, fire department spokesman Jim Smith said.

"They were trying to control it and found a source of ignition," according to Smith, who said four PGW employees and a firefighter were among the injured. He said some of the gas workers' injuries were serious.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/natural-gas-explosion-philadelphia-...

http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/caught-on-tape-gas-main-explodes-126...

[Starr DiGiacomo]

Explosion near Crewe Railway Station - two injured

Two people have been treated for minor burns after some small explosions near Crewe Railway Station.

A man and a woman were taken to hospital for treatment to burns after the incident at around 8.22pm on Nantwich Road.

Witnesses reported manhole covers being blown up into the air by an explosion thought to have been ignited by underground electricity and gas supplies.

Emergency services closed off the station to tackle the incident, although it has since reopened.

The National Rail Enquiries website said delays of up to 60 minutes could be expected by passengers. Normal services expected by 11.30pm.

An investigation into the cause of the explosion has started, although a spokesman for British Transport Police said it was thought to have been sparked by a combination of underground gas and electricity supplies.

He said: "Emergency services are there making it safe."

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/Explosion-near-Crewe-Railway-S...

[Starr DiGiacomo]

PUGET SOUND GAS EXPLOSION THEORY

They maintain that a windstorm on Sunday blew a tree into a power line near 127th Street Northeast and 12th Avenue Northeast, and a surge of electricity somehow reached PSE's pipeline. They believe that surge caused several leaks, including one that filled the home with gas. A spark ignited the home Monday morning.

PSE officials say they've found at least four BB- to finger-sized holes in the neighborhood gas lines that appeared to be caused by an electrical surge, PSE spokesman Martha Monfried said.

"That's what our experience is telling us," she said.

This phenomenon — referred to as arcing, because electrical currents can actually jump from one conduit to another — is rare. Puget Sound Energy can find only 17 instances of it throughout their distribution system during the past nine years.

But it has caused other accidents around the country. In one Virginia case in the 1990s, according to Associated Press accounts, corroded underground electrical wires buried too close to a natural-gas service line arced, energizing the gas pipeline. A house exploded, killing a wife and mother and severely injuring her husband.

Getting a powerful enough jolt of electricity to reach underground pipelines isn't as easy as it might seem, said Rick Kuprewicz, a Bellevue-based independent pipeline safety consultant. It requires a source of enough voltage and a pathway — tree roots or the right soil consistency — linking it to a nearby pipe.

But when it happens, "all those underground pipelines basically function like wires," he said. "Usually you see it in the Midwest, with lightning. I've seen it where the power was so great it actually left a track in the pipeline."

Once the surge hits all that steel, the current can head in many directions at once. If the electrified pipeline comes close to an adjacent metal water or sewer line, it may arc to the new line. Near one of the gas-line holes this week, Monfried said, an even bigger hole appeared in an adjacent water line.

"It could have jumped from our line to another," she said. Or the other way around.  Continued...

 

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016337715_gasleake...

[Starr DiGiacomo]

27 September 2011 Last updated at 17:04 ET

Man, 64, injured in gas blast at Crumpsall house

A 64-year-old man is seriously ill in hospital after suffering burns in a gas explosion at a house in Manchester.

Fire crews were called to the incident at a semi-detached house on Brynorme Road, Crumpsall, at about 11:45 BST.

The blast led to debris from the building being scattered across the street and the house suffered significant structural damage.

Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service said the man was taken to hospital for treatment.

He had been led out of the property by neighbours before fire crews arrived, a spokesman said.

About 20 nearby houses were evacuated until the scene was confirmed as safe.

A joint investigation has been launched between specialist fire officers and a number of other agencies, the spokesman added.

•  

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-15085046

[Starr DiGiacomo]

Egypt: Blast destroys Sinai gas pipeline to Israel, Jordan

By REUTERS AND JPOST.COM STAFF
09/27/2011 04:06

Witnesses say 15 meter high flames rising from pipeline near El-Arish which has been subject to attack five times this year; Egyptian security sources say cause of explosion unknown, no casualties reported.

Talkbacks (8)

    An explosion destroyed an Egyptian pipeline in Sinai that supplies Israel and Jordan with gas on Tuesday, security sources and witnesses said.

The security sources said the explosion happened west of the city of El-Arish. Witnesses said 15-meter high flames could be seen rising from the pipeline. The cause of the blast was not immediately known and there were no immediate reports of casualties.

The army surrounded the area and the company operating the pipeline closed it down after the blast, which was heard far away from the scene.

The pipeline is run by Gasco, Egypt's gas transport company which is a subsidiary of the national gas company EGAS.

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=239672

[Starr DiGiacomo]

Gas main blast takes out rural W.Va. road

 

Published 02:05 p.m., Monday, September 26, 2011

MILL CREEK, W.Va. (AP) — What sounded like a plane crash on the edge of the Monongahela National Forest has turned out to be a gas line explosion.

Randolph County emergency management director Marvin Hill says no one was injured, but the explosion around noon Monday left a 12-foot deep crater in Adolph-Cassity Road near Mill Creek.

He says the hole is as wide as the two-lane road.

Hill says the 6-inch line is owned by Eastern American Energy Corp. of Buckhannon. A company official didn't immediately return a telephone message about what may have caused the blast.

Hill says no cars were on the road at the time, and the person who reported the sound thought it was a plane crash.

http://www.chron.com/news/article/Gas-main-blast-takes-out-rural-W-...

[Starr DiGiacomo]

Seattle gas explosion came from problem within home

September 26, 2011 |  1:33 pm

   

 

0

3

The explosion that ripped through a house in northern Seattle and forced a neighborhood evacuation Monday was caused by a natural gas leak inside the home -- not pipeline leaks in the same neighborhood a day earlier, investigators have concluded.

A couple badly injured during the blast and subsequent fire had smelled gas in their home Sunday -- the same day utility workers were checking out three pipeline leaks just blocks away -- but had not reported it, Seattle Fire Department spokesman Kyle Moore said in an interview.

"The couple that lived there said they smelled natural gas yesterday, but they also had some other odors, so they did not know if it was natural gas or not. They did not report it," Moore said. "This morning they woke up and started turning things on -- and boom."

The explosion was caused by an electrical spark igniting gas inside the house, he said.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/09/seattle-gas-explo...

 

This is the 2nd Seattle explosion in less than 24 hrs.  What is going on here.  Scary stuff.

[Starr DiGiacomo]

Workplace regulators have huge job, few resources to police oilfield safety

 

WILL KINCAID/Tribune

Firefighters practice putting out oilfield fires at the Tesoro Refinery in 2004.

The Bismarck office of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has four people who monitor compliance for 56,000 businesses in North Dakota and South Dakota.

That number is five less than it was in 2000 in a region with 5,700 producing oil and gas wells and 199 working rigs.

"Clearly, we can't be in all places at all times," said OSHA Area Director Tom Deutscher. "We're roughly a third of the personnel we need to be, so we're in response mode."

Deutscher said his office handled 14 workplace deaths in the past year, and half of those were in the oil and gas industry. A well explosion in McKenzie County added two more fatalities to the tally this month. The rapid expansion of drilling means more and more people are going to work at sites where there is a potential for a deadly accident.

"For lack of a better word, we're the cop on the street," Deutscher said. "One of the dilemmas we face is the question of ‘How do we have a presence up there?'"

Oil and gas development, like other industrial activities, can be dangerous for workers, and the growth of wells in state has been reflected by the growth of injury and accident claims.

According to the North Dakota Workforce Safety and Insurance agency, the number of claims filed in oil and gas occupations during the 2004-05 fiscal year was 247. This year, that number is 1,897. The number of workers in those jobs also has increased - from 4,800 to 23,753 during the same time periods.

"The number of claims filed has gone up drastically," said WSI Director Bryan Klipfel. Claims have increased by 198 percent in oil trucking jobs and 178 percent among well servicing occupations.

When occupations experience dramatic growth as they have in the oil patch, it is natural that the number of injuries also increases,

[Starr DiGiacomo]

Colombia mine explosion toll rises to seven

11:21 am | Saturday, September 24th, 2011

 

BOGOTA — The death toll from an explosion at a coal mine in northern Colombia, believed to have been caused by an accumulation of methane gas, has risen to seven, authorities said Friday.

Colombia’s mining regulator Ingeominas had last put the death toll from Wednesday’s incident at the El Diamante mine in the town of Socha in Boyaca department at three.

Emergency personnel subsequently retrieved the bodies of four more miners who had been trapped under the rubble, Ingeominas said.

More than 40 people have been killed in mining accidents in Colombia so far this year, most of them in cave-ins.

Last year, 173 people were killed in 84 reported accidents, many due to insufficient security measures.

President Juan Manuel Santos has sought to boost the mining sector as a pillar of Colombia’s economic growth.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/64425/colombia-mine-explosion-toll-ris...

[Starr DiGiacomo]

Officials investigate house explosion

Fire investigators have been on the scene most of the day looking for clues that might help them figure out why Jack Roberts' house exploded yesterday morning.

Officials from the several agencies have been combing through the remains of the house. The investigation is still in its early stages, but officials tell me they're focusing on a propane appliance in the basement. They say Jack Roberts had complained of a propane odor in the upstairs portion of the house just before the explosion. Assistant fire Chief Mike Sparks was one of the first on the scene.

"There was quite a bit of chaos. We had two patients and they were saying another victim was in the house and we had a tremendous amount of debris. Smoke and flames were visible for miles," says Sparks.

Officials say Jack Roberts was likely killed instantly. His two children, Jerry Roberts and Karen Knox were badly injured and flown to UK Hospital where they're in critical condition. Assistant Chief Sparks says he hasn't seen an incident quite like this in 24 years of service.

"I've seen a lot of incidents, but nothing like an explosion as serious as this," says Sparks.

He says gas leak problems are best left to professionals.

"If you do smell gas, you need to get out. Call the fire and let them deal with it. Don't try to do anything yourself," he says.

Family members tell me Jack Roberts has lived in this house since he built it in the 1960s.

http://www.wkyt.com/news/headlines/Officials_investigate_house_expl...

[Starr DiGiacomo]

Crews still working on underground explosion in Ridgewood

Friday, September 23, 2011

 

RIDGEWOOD – An early morning underground explosion that partially blew a manhole cover at the corner of North Walnut Street and Franklin Avenue was still under repair on Friday with officials from Public Service Electric and Gas at the scene.

THOMAS E. FRANKLIN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

PSE&G workers remove the manhole cover where an explosion was reported at 905am at the intersection of Franklin Ave & N Walnut St in Ridgewood. Ridgewood police chief John Ward said there were sporadic reported outages around town.

“Apparently there was enough force to rip up the manhole cover partially and leave it ajar,” said Ridgewood Police Chief John Ward from the scene of the 9:05 a.m. explosion. “Initial reports were some flames and smoke coming out of the manhole.”

Police and firefighters from the village responded to the area. There were also reports of sporadic power outages at the same time from Linwood and Van Dien avenues and the area of 1200 East Ridgewood Avenue.

Crews from PSE&G later arrived at the scene.

“We couldn’t definitely say if that was related, but it seems to be because (the call) came in at the same time,” Ward said.

The Valley Hospital had power, Ward said.

Utility crews were working Friday afternoon to check for any residual effects of the explosion and would work to drain water from the area, police said. There had been some unconfirmed reports of a light odor of natural gas and environmental officials were also at the scene — which is near a fuel station — early Friday afternoon.

“This looks like it was electrical related,” Ward said. “These manholes are basically sealed. If there is an explosion in there, there are large currents down there. It’s a confined space…any kind of electrical explosion ?  is going to push the manhole up.”

http://ww