Chemical plant explosion outside Boston this morning registered on the Richter Scale

[WilliamPitt]

Damn.



http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2006/11/danvers_explosi.html

Danvers explosion registers on Richter scale

By Sarah Kneezle and Andrew Ryan, Globe Correspondents

The explosion this morning at a chemical plant in Danvers shot a tower of fire hundreds of feet in the air, rattled windows 20 miles away in Boston and could be felt as far away as New Hampshire.

The blast released such a massive amount of energy, in fact, it registered a 0.5 on the Richter scale at the Boston College observatory, almost 30 miles away in Weston.

While that is only the equivalent of a very small earthquake, scientists said it was still an extraordinary feat for an explosion in which most of the force was released upwards, into the air.

"It was such a huge explosion, I'm not surprised at all that the seismic energy went into the ground and we were able to detect it," said Dave Ebel, a professor of geophysics at Boston College. He explained that, "most of the energy went up into the air resulting in objects being thrown up in the air and blowing out windows. The airwave does the most damage."

That airwave damaged more than 60 buildings in a 1/4 mile radius around the blast site.

...more...

[mike_c]

1. ouch-- I hate it when that happens....

I wonder what they made there.

[WilliamPitt]

3. Ink, I think

Who knew ink was so explosive?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. I'd imagine it was the solvents.

Unless it was something directly unrelated to ink production. A gas explosion or something.

[H2O Man]

20. Solvents

are a serious problem if they catch fire. There is a scene in the movie "A Civil Action," where the pond catches on fire. The same thing happened in a secluded hamlet in Delaware County, NY when a passing motorist threw a cigarette into a lake that had a coating of TCE on the surface. Heck of a bang, and an ugly fire.

[radfringe]

12. now you know why

the pen is mightier than the sword. Pens have ink in them.. ;)

[Gruenemann]

13. Maybe that's why the pen is mightier than the sword. eom

[Conan_The_Barbarian]

15. ZING!

+10 wit points for Gruenemann

[jmowreader]

22. It depends on the process it's running in

Tattoo inks are suspended in ethanol and are therefore flammable.

Offset printing ink is made from oil. It's combustible--it will burn if you work at it enough--but it won't go out of its way to catch fire.

Solvent-based flexo ink is dissolved in an aromatic solvent, and is highly flammable.

Energy-cured inks and rotogravure inks are both dissolved in toluene, which is explosive. (Rotogravure is an industrial process that produces more energy than it consumes...the EPA requires that the toluene be recovered from the air and either distilled into liquid toluene or burned. Everyone burns it in a boiler, then runs a turbine with the generated steam. The turbine will produce more electricity than the printing plant can use, so they dump the excess onto the grid. OTOH, gravure is a dying process because the plates--actually, engraved copper cylinders--are so expensive breakeven is half a million impressions.)

[seriousstan]

4. solvents and inks

[Sydnie]

7. Ink, paint solvents, paint, and "coatings"

What ever the hell coatings is. :shrug:

[MADem]

2. It was heard throughout the Merrimack Valley and all the way up to southern Maine

I live less than twenty miles away as the crow flies. It woke many of us up, and we're in a big sturdy, well-insulated house.

[jackster]

6. I happen to be awake when it happened...

I live in Wakefield - I'd guess within 10 miles and it was a pretty loud boom. I thought my boiler might have caused it as it seem to come within the bowels of the house. I knew it wasn't thunder but I could never find the cause of it.... until I turned on the television this morning.

Amazing that no one was killed.

[MADem]

8. Sure is amazing--almost miraculous!

Ya gotta wonder what could have CAUSED that, though...who really thought that the pen (ink) was THAT much mightier than the sword??? :evilgrin:

[jackster]

9. good one!

although to be honest, I think they produced the chemicals for inks and dyes, not the actual inks and dyes themselves.

[insane_cratic_gal]

10. Thanks goodness no one was hurt

Was it an underground explosion?

From some of the tales it sure seems like it was.

[AllieB]

11. The explosion woke me up

I thought it was an earthquake. I live about 15-20 miles from the explosion.

[Conan_The_Barbarian]

14. Now that's an alarm clock

[Marrah_G]

16. Scary stuff

My friend said it was like an earthquake, whole house shook, woke everyone up, things fell off the walls etc. He was about 2 miles away, maybe a little less. Thankfully no damage to his house. Good thing, since dinner is at his house tommorrow!

Now we are just praying none of his kids (he coaches Danvers HS football)were in the damage zone.

It truly is amazing no one was seriously injured or killed.

[polmaven]

23. I live about 2 miles away , too.

The blast is a sound I never want to hear again....NEVER!

I was half awake, half asleep, and heard a rumble, then a huge blast that made the house shake. It nearly threw me out of my bed.

I got up an looked out the window and saw a large plume of smoke. Sirens were going off.

A neighbor and I speculated that maybe a house in the area had exploded.

I didn't know what it was until about 6:15 this morning when my sister called as I was turning on the news on t.v. I could see all the helicopters out my window as I watched the news they were filming.

Like I said, I never, ever want to hear that sound again!

[hedgehog]

17. Just a WAG based on what's left of the place-

I would guess that this is one of many small manufacturing plants that's still doing things the way they were done 80 years ago except that the equipment is now 80 years old and hasn't been well maintained. I worked at a place where they need to keep a large holding pot lined with brick warmed over week-ends. They took a 1" rubber hose and put a valve on one end and hooked the other end to a high pressure natural gas line.When the week-end comes, they drag that hose out across a floor covered with grit and sharp metal scraps, open the valve, light the gas drape it into the pot. no flame safety to make sure it stays lit, no gas detectors, nothing! I figure sooner or later the hose is going to get a hole in it, and then , BOOM.

[Marrah_G]

19. Maybe not in this case

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2006/11/officials_chemi.html

It was probably just some freak accident.

Looks like a rather young, family owned business.

I hope they have alot of insurance...............

[never cry wolf]

21. No doubt

I am an architect and we specialize in industrial buildings. You would not believe some of the things I see.

We had to do a rehab on a chemical plant we did 25 years ago. They didn't actually manufacture but processed and packaged. Various acids, turpentine, paint thinner and such came in full strength and they would dilute it and package it for sale in hardware stores. Turns out that they had been dumping the excess and spills into floor drains and their entire underfloor sanitary system corroded. Had to sawcut hundreds of feet of concrete floor and replace everything while they had to use port-pottys for months.

Last year we had a client interested in buying a plating plant next door to them to tear down and use for parking. The plant had just gone into bankruptcy and they were in the process of cleaning out the chemicals. One vat was being spilled slowly onto the floor with a couple of fans blowing on it to evaporate it. It was located across the street from residential, sheesh. Not exactly EPA standards.

But the best one was we had a client, local painters union, that want to buy an old printing plants and turn it into an apprentice training facility. We did a walk through and I recommended that before they make an offer to have an environmental expert check for asbestos, lead, etc. They did and there was. The cleanup estimate was about 50K so they asked that they pay that much less for the property. The building owner said, no, don't worry, I'll get someone to clean it up. Turns out he hired some illegals who came in over a weekend and just ripped the stuff down contaminating absolutely everything with the dust particles. The cleanup now cost 100K. The best part of it is though, a couple of years later we were doing an addition on a printing plant in a different location. I couldn't stand the owner, perfect preppy repuke. Had an autographed pic of him and poppy in his office, was appointed to head the state police board by Gov. Edgar, had a single digit lisc plate on his beamer. At a meeting one day someone mentioned asbestos for some reason and he rolled his eyes and told us about a printing plant his family had owned that they were trying to sell to a damn union that had some problems. I am amazed that I could keep from belly laughing until I got out to my car.

[sandnsea]

18. Whoa!!!!!!!

How freakin' scary!! I can't believe there's not more on the news. WTF?? I'm glad everybody is okay, holy criminy.