Fires and explosions

Citation

(2005), "Fires and explosions", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 14 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2005.07314aac.007

Fires and explosions

30 March 2004Coal mine, Hunan Province, China

About 12 miners were missing after a gas explosion at a mine in China’s central Hunan province, the official Xinhua news agency reported today. The explosion occurred about 1700, local time at the Xianghuatai coal mine in Lianyuan city, Xinhua quoted local officials saying. The cause of the accident was being investigated and a rescue operation was under way, it said.

11 April 2004Coal mine, Southern Siberia, Russia

At least 28 coalminers have been killed in an explosion in a pit in southern Siberia and 23 remained trapped underground, a spokesman for rescue services said. Methane gas caused the early-morning explosion 560 metres down at the Taizhina pit in the Kuzbass mining area, a spokeswoman for Kemerovo region said. Reports had also previously spoken of 16 survivors brought to safety, but the spokesman said this figure had been revised downwards to only eight, following a mix-up in the counting. A team of 150 workers, some from the nearby city of Krasnoyarsk, were drafted in to help the rescue effort, expected to continue into the night. The Governor of the Kemerovo region, Aman Tuleyev, went to the scene to comfort the miners’ families and oversee the rescue operation. A spokesman for the Governor said methane, which is explosive when mixed with air, was the likely cause.

11 April 2004. Rescuers searching for survivors of a mine blast in Russia are losing hope of finding anyone left alive. At least 40 miners were killed and seven remained missing after the blast at the Taizhina coal mine in Siberia. Grieving relatives continued to check the list of dead as hundreds of rescue workers tried to reach the miners trapped half a kilometre under ground. The blast happened in the early hours of yesterday morning in the Kemerovo region of Siberia, about 3,000kms east of Moscow. The explosion – possibly by methane gas – sparked a fire underground and caused the shaft to collapse. Gas spread through the underground tunnels as the ventilation system stopped working. More than 300 workers from neighbouring areas were drafted in to help with the rescue effort. Voices and sounds could still be heard from underground until yesterday evening, but then went silent.

12 April 2004. Rescue teams carried victims to the surface in black plastic body bags today after an explosion that killed 45 workers in a Siberian coal mine. The search for two miners who remained missing continued, but rescue workers held out little hope of finding anyone alive. Six of the 53 men who were in the Taizhina mine at the time of the explosion were rescued, Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov said. The 45th body was found late today, Russian news reports said.

13 April 2004. Rescuers have found another two bodies of miners in the Taizhina mine, the Kemerovo region, Channel One reported. Thus, the total number of victims of the tragedy reached 47. Bodies of 44 miners have been taken out of the mine.

14 April 2004. Authorities started restoring the Taizhina colliery, Kuznetsk coal basin (Kuzbass), where a methane blast killed 47 miners on April 10. The crisis centre reported that power was already supplied underground, and airing of the main workings started. The conveyor transport is in operation, permitting rescuers and miners to clear quickly debris and to prepare faces for work. An exact date when coal mining is resumed at Taizhina, has not been fixed yet. However, specialists and local authorities have made an unequivocal conclusion: The mine can not be closed down, since this will provoke unpredictable ecological aftermaths for Osinniki City. According to the managing director of the Yuzhkuzbassugol Company Vladimir Lavrik, which incorporates Taizhina, the mine is fitted out with the latest equipment. It was designed to recover 1.5 million tonnes of valuable coking coal and can double this figure in future.

17 April 2004Chemical plant, Chongqing, China

About 150,000 people were evacuated after clouds of toxic chlorine gas spewed from a factory in Chongqing city yesterday, leaving at least nine dead or missing. The greenish-yellow gas began leaking from the Tianyuan Chemical Industry Plant in the densely populated Jiangbei district of Chongqing on Thursday (April 15) night, residents and Xinhua reported. Workers noticed the leak about 1900 hrs and activated an emergency alert. Local authorities evacuated all residents within a 1km radius of the factory. At 0200 yesterday a leaking tank exploded, causing a quick spread of the chlorine and triggering more blasts and fires. Efforts to divert the chlorine to the nearby Jialing River failed and by 1800 hrs emergency services were forced to flee the factory. Not long after they had left the site there was a loud explosion, triggering a mushroom cloud of yellow smoke and prompting more evacuations. “So far 150,000 people have been evacuated,” Xinhua said. At 2200 hrs, the factory building collapsed, with chlorine continuing to flow out from the area. An environmental monitoring team was keeping close watch on the chlorine content in the air near the factory as fire-fighters hosed the site with water to dilute the chlorine. By midnight, seven men and two women were reported dead or missing, including the plant manager. Chongqing Mayor Wang Hongju and party secretary Huang Zhendong were on the scene directing rescue work. Police cordoned off the area within 2 km of the factory and major trunk roads within 3km of the site were closed. “Initial evaluation shows the explosions were caused by antiquated equipment and improper operation,” said Miao Guangkui, director of the rescue team. Mr Miao said that after several of the factory’s eight tanks were found to be oozing gas, the plan was to bring the situation under control by letting the chlorine out of the leaking tanks naturally, through iron pipes. But the factory instead pumped the chlorine out, Mr Miao said, which caused the temperature in the tanks to rise, sparking the explosions. Fire-fighters estimated at least seven of the plant’s liquefied chlorine gas tanks, each holding six tonnes of chlorine gas, were letting off toxic fumes. Inhalation of 2.5 milligrams of chlorine gas is enough to cause death – symptoms of exposure include bronchial spasms and breathing difficulties. More than 600 soldiers had been mobilised for the rescue work, with more than 100 of them sent immediately to the scene to help local officials evacuate residents, Xinhua said.

21 April 2004Chemical leaks, China

The State Council of China today reported seven cases of leaks of lethal chemical products in the past week, which claimed a total of 21 lives across the country. The latest was a hydrogen cyanide gas leak yesterday from a gold mining plant in Beijing’s suburban district of Huairou that killed three people and left another 15 hospitalized. Another leak included today’s explosion of a toluene reaction facility in a pharmaceutical plant in Taizhou City in Zhejiang Province, east China, in which two were killed. Nine people were killed on April 16 by blasts in the wake of a chlorine gas leak at Tianyuan Chemical Industry Plant in Jiangbei district of south-western Chongqing Municipality. A poisoning accident at a privately-owned refinery in Maoming City in Guangdong province, south China, left three people dead on April 19. On April 20, an oil tanker at the Nanjing section of the Yangtze River in Jiangsu Province, east China, exploded when it was being serviced, killing two people. On the same day, two people were killed in an explosion at Jihua Group Company in Jilin Province, northeast China, and a leak of waste chlorine in Jiangxi Axunge Plant also left many injured. A circular, issued by the Office of the Committee for Safety in Production under the State Council, China’s cabinet, blamed the fatal accidents for insufficient safety prevention and outdated production equipment

1 May 2004Coal mine, Xixian County, Shanxi Province, China

An explosion tore through a coal mine in remote northern China yesterday, killing at least 34 miners and leaving another two trapped underground. The official Xinhua news agency said the men were killed when a blast ripped through the state-owned Liangjiahe coal mine in a mountainous area outside Shanxi province’s Linfen city, shortly after 0740, local time. It said 13 miners had been rescued from the mine, which lies in a remote mountainous region, while efforts were underway to save two more still underground. Xinhua said Shanxi governor Zhang Baoshun was on his way to the mine while local officials were directing rescue efforts at the site. It said efforts to investigate the cause of the blast were being hampered by the mine’s location in remote, difficult terrain.

2 May 2004Gas station, Shindand, Afghanistan

An accidental explosion at a gas station killed at least 25 people in western Afghanistan, the government said today. At least another 40 people were injured in the blast near Shindand, in Herat province, 360 miles west of Kabul, President Hamid Karzai’s office said in a written statement. Karzai was “deeply saddened by the news of the terrible accident caused by a fuel explosion” and extended his condolences to the families of the victims, the statement said. It was not immediately clear what caused the blast or when it occurred.

14 May 2004Coal mine, Heilongjiang Province, China

A total of 12 workers were killed in a gas explosion at a coal mine in China’s north-eastern Heilongjiang province, state media reported today. The blast happened at 2300, yesterday when 50 miners were in a shaft at the Xinxing coalmine at Qitaihe city, Xinhua news agency said. Thirty-eight of them were rescued, but 12 died.

17 May 2004Prison, San Pedro Sula, Honduras

A huge fire at a prison in northern Honduras killed 103 inmates today, all of them members of a violent street gang the government has targeted in a controversial crackdown. Police said the early morning fire at the prison in the northern city of San Pedro Sula followed an explosion caused by a short circuit. The fire spread rapidly through an area housing members of the infamous Mara Salvatrucha youth gang. Most died from suffocation and about 25 more were being treated in hospital.

18 May 2004Oil well, Nigeria

At least three people died in a fire that engulfed Royal Dutch Shell’s disused Afam Well-16 in south-eastern Nigeria, the company said today. Shell, Nigeria’s biggest producer, said in a statement the dead were members of a gang of suspected oil thieves who ruptured parts of the wellhead. A helicopter overfly sighted a burning tanker at the scene. Shell said it had mobilised oil well fire experts Boots and Coots International to the facility because of the “intensity and complexity” of the inferno which has been raging since Sunday (May 16). “Casualty figures are not known but it appears that three people may have died,” the statement said. The Anglo-Dutch oil giant said it had informed appropriate government and regulatory agencies about the fire at the well in Oyigbo district of Rivers state. Shell withdrew from the Afam field in 1999 after a string of violent attacks by local militants.

19 May 2004. Over 29 persons were killed in a fire outbreak at a Shell oil well at Afam in Oyigbo local government area of Rivers State on Sunday (May 16). A source told Daily Champion that the fire was caused by a disagreement among indigenes of the three communities in Afam over the sharing formula for “royalties” from the illegal bunkerers who have turned the Shell oil well head into an illegal bunkering. The three communities had been contesting the ownership of the land on which the well head is sited with each insisting on taking the lion’s share of the booty. It was learnt that during the disagreement, one of the people brought out a lighter and cigarette and ignited the fire. A police source said that ten persons were buried at Afam Uta, another ten at Obe Akpu and nine at Afam Ukuru while others with fire burns are in unknown hospitals in the area. The source who trailed some of the victims to a private hospital in Okwali said they saw four victims who were badly burnt but when the police left they were evacuated from the hospital. Before the fire outbreak, two tankers had already loaded that Sunday and left and when the fire erupted the third tanker and all persons present were trapped by the inferno. Deputy Governor, Sir Gabriel Toby, when he visited the scene sympathised with the families of the victims. He warned the people to desist from illegal bunkering and other activities that are illegitimate, pointing out that many have perished in the quest of looking for little things whereas there is no compensation for loss of lives. General Manager, Eastern Operation, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), Mr Mutiu Sunmonu lamented that the company lost 40,000 barrels per day to illegal bunkering. Sunmonu stated that Shell cannot at present quantify its loss in the Afam vandalism. The fire was still raging at noon yesterday, and more than 22 fire-fighting machines were at the scene

19 May 2004Coal mine, Shanxi, China

A serious accident happened last night when a mine in Shanxi province was hit by a gas explosion, trapping 34 miners. “One miner was found alive and 15 bodies of miners have been recovered. The rescue work is still going on,” an official at the Luliang Coal Mine Safety Supervision Bureau told AFP. The 18 others were still missing, he said. The mine did not have an operating licence and was shut down twice in May but the owner of the mine continued to operate the mine illegally, the China News Service said.

19 May 2004. An explosion and a fire ripped through a mine in Luliang, a city in Shanxi province, yesterday evening while 34 workers were in its shaft, the official Xinhua News Agency said today. Eighteen bodies were recovered and 15 miners were trapped in the accident, state television said. One other worker escaped with injuries, it reported. Rescue efforts were hampered because the miners were scattered in “dozens of spots” throughout the shaft, making it difficult to locate them, Xinhua said. Police have detained the mine manager, who was not at the scene at the time of the explosion, Xinhua said. The facility, which produces 20,000 tons of coal annually, had been operating without the approval of authorities.

19 May 2004Coal mine, Shuozhou, Shangxi Province, China

A fire in a Shanxi mine killed four workers and trapped ten, state television said. Forty-seven others managed to escape the mine in the city of Shuozhou after the blaze started yesterday.

24 May 2004Flooded coal mine, Gansu Province, China

The 17 workers who were trapped in a coal mine hit by flooding yesterday afternoon in western China’s Gansu Province were still missing this morning, according to the local authority. Twenty-nine miners were working in the privately-run Wutao Coal Mine in Shandan County when the accident happened at 1330, yesterday, and 12 were rescued. A group of officials and experts headed by Gansu Deputy Governor Yang Zhiming rushed to the site for rescue operations this morning. The rescuers now are draining water via six pumps from the flood-hit mine but the water level in the mine still remains around 70 metres deep. Investigation into the cause of the accident is still underway.

25 May 2004. Rescue workers are racing against time to pump out the water from a flooded coal mine in Shandan county, Zhangye city of northwest China’s Gansu province, where 17 miners who have been trapped since Sunday (May 23) beneath the shaft because of the flooding. “The faster we pump out the water, the more lives we will rescue, “said Liu Jie, one of the leaders in charge of the rescue operations, who said six pumps were used to pump out the flooded waters. According to Liu, eight other pumps of larger horsepower have been also transferred from Lanzhou, the provincial capital, to the site of the accident to expedite the water pumping. Around 530 people, along with materials worth some 1 million yuan (about US$120,500), have been mobilized to participate in the rescue operations. Investigation into the cause of the accident is still underway.

26 May 2004Coal mine, Sajibi, Pakistan

An explosion in a coal mine today killed at least three miners in south-western Pakistan, a government official said. The official, Maqbool Ahmad, said the blast ripped through a mine at Sajibi, a main coal mine area about 50 kilometres east of Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s south-western Baluchistan province, where 15 people were working at the time. He said rescue teams had found three bodies. Ahmad gave no other details, and only said “we do not think other miners would be alive”.

27 May 2004. The death toll from the gas explosion in a coal mine in south-western Pakistan is now 15, a government official said today. The official, Maqbool Ahmad, said the blast occurred yesterday at a depth of about 550 metres. All 15 men who were working in the mine at the time have died, he said. Mr Ahmed said it was a gas explosion, but officials did not know exactly what ignited it.

9 June 2004Factory, Jiangxi Province, China

An explosion today at a firecracker factory in eastern China’s Jiangxi province killed 16 people and left three others seriously injured, state press said. The blast occurred at the Huayuan Firecracker Mill in Luxi County early this morning, leaving a crater over an area of 80 square metres and knocking over the factory’s garage, Xinhua news agency reported. Trees in the vicinity of the blast were covered with gun powder, while windows in homes some 100 metres away were shattered, it said. An investigation into today’s blast was ongoing, Xinhua said.

10 June 2004Coal mine, Guizhou Province, China

At least nine miners were killed in a coal mine gas explosion in south-western Guizhou Province yesterday morning, according to local government sources. The blast occurred at 1010 hrs at the Yongliu Colliery in Luobie Township of Liupanshui City, said an official with the provincial coal mine administration. An investigation into the cause of the explosion and rescue work was under way, said the official.

10 June 2004Premises, Beijing, China

A four-storey building – the west wing of the Jingmin Hotel, under renovation in Beijing, burned down yesterday, killing at least nine people and injuring 39. Xinhua said the building was mainly used as temporary quarters for renovation workers and the hotel office. Jingmin Hotel is a recreational centre for retired army officers. Xinhua said the fire broke out on the first floor, where the swimming pool was located. The news agency quoted witnesses as saying they heard several explosions when the fire started, while a middle-aged woman said she saw a few people jump from the second floor. Thirty-six fire engines were despatched to put out the fire. Some witnesses speculated the blaze took a heavy toll because the building also housed a staff canteen, kitchen and dormitory. Firemen arrived ten to 15 minutes after the blaze began. Xinhua said police and firemen were investigating the incident.

15 June 2004Coal mine, Shaanxi Province, China

Fifteen people were confirmed killed and seven others were still missing as of 0600, today, in a coal mine blast that occurred yesterday afternoon in north-west China’s Shaanxi Province, local officials said. The blast took place at 1650 yesterday in the No 1 coal mine of the Huangling Mining Co. Ltd when 85 miners were working underground. Of them, 65 miners were rescued, including five injured miners who were rushed to hospital. The 15 killed people included two rescuers, according to the provincial bureau for supervising safety in coal production. A task force has been set up to search for the missing miners and to deal with the aftermath of the accident.

16 June 2004Coal mine, Rio Turbio Area, Argentina

Two miners died in a coal mine fire that continued raging today, and authorities said there was little chance of rescuing another 11 miners still trapped below. “It is not very likely” that the other men were alive, one rescue worker said after his team members finally accessed the damaged tunnel through an alternative route, more than 20 hours after the fire broke out late on Monday (June 14). Galleries collapsed some seven kilometres underground. About 100 miners escaped. Some were treated for smoke inhalation. Community official Paulino Rodriguez said two unidentified bodies have been recovered and taken to be autopsied at a hospital in Rio Turbio, in southern Patagonia region. Rescuers tried to reach the 13 workers who were trapped after a conveyor belt broke down and caught fire, mining authorities said. Today, rescuers were still trying to extinguish the fire a union official said. Rio Turbio Mayor, Matias Mazu, told reporters that rescuers were sealing off some tunnels in order to draw the smoke out and choke the fire.

17 June 2004. Argentinian President Nestor Kirchner has rushed to his home province after a coal mine cave-in in southern Argentina killed six miners and trapped eight others. Authorities said the chances of the trapped people being rescued were fading. Rescuers pulled the bodies of six miners from the Rio Turbio coal mine in Santa Cruz province, some 2,800 km south-west of the capital, and were trying to reach those still trapped yesterday. Mr Kirchner set out from the capital at midday to follow rescuers’ progress on the ground. But Rio Turbio Mayor Matias Mazu told reporters chances of their getting out alive are “almost nil” due to the amount of carbon monoxide emitted by the fire on Monday that sparked the collapse.