Fires and Explosions

Citation

(2001), "Fires and Explosions", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 10 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2001.07310cac.006

Fires and Explosions

Fires and Explosions

20 August 2000 – South-eastern New Mexico

Ten people, including five children, were killed and two others critically injured on August 19, when a natural gas pipeline exploded in a remote area in south-eastern New Mexico, police said today. They said the victims were on a family camp-out along the Pecos River when the powerful explosion occurred. There was a rupture in the line and it blew up underground. There was a large ball of fire and a huge crater, said New Mexico State Police Captain, John Balderston. Officials for El Paso Energy Corp., owners of the pipeline, said the cause of the explosion was not yet known. The blast occurred about 30 miles (48 kms) south-east of Carlsbad, which is near Carlsbad Caverns National Park and the Texas border. Balderston said the fireball from the explosion was visible in the town. He said 12 members of a New Mexico family were camping near a bridge on the Pecos on a weekend fishing trip. The pipeline crossed the river at that point. Six died at the scene and six others were taken to hospitals in Lubbock, Texas and Galveston, Texas, where four of them died, Balderston said. Two were in critical condition with severe burns, he said. He said a team of investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board was flying in from Washington to investigate the blast. El Paso Energy spokesman Mel Scott said the 30-inch (76cms) pipeline carried natural gas from the West Texas oilfields to California. Company officials said the pipeline had been inspected recently and found to be in good shape. He said the blast occurred at about dawn and that El Paso Energy crews shut off the flow of gas about 45 minutes later. Scott said it was not yet known how the explosion would affect gas supplies or electric generation for California.

21 August 2000 – The death toll from a weekend explosion of a natural gas pipeline that decimated a New Mexico campground rose to 11 today as one of only two survivors died, a hospital official said. The cause of the explosion was under investigation by the US National Transportation Safety Board, whose inspectors were surveying the site today, said NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway. "They're documenting and surveying the area," Holloway said, adding that an expert from Washington DC was expected to arrive later today. The blast was so intense it fused sand into glass and left a crater 86-feet long and 20-feet deep where the pipeline emerged from underground to cross the Pecos. The 30-inch pipeline, owned by El Paso Energy Corp., was 50 years old but recently passed a safety inspection, company officials said.

23 August 2000 – Investigators have found corrosion and thinning walls on a section of the natural gas pipeline that exploded in a weekend (August 19-20) fireball, killing 11 people on a family camping trip, officials say. A spokesman for the US National Transportation Safety Board cautioned that it was far too early to say what caused Saturday's blast in a remote corner of south-east New Mexico. "It'll be nine months to a year before we know why, if we know why, the explosion occurred," NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said yesterday as a team of agency investigators continued to study the site where the 30-inch pipeline emerged from the ground to cross the Pecos River. "They have been able to see visually that the pipe had some corrosion and thinning. A piece of that pipe will be taken back to Washington to look for anomalies, scratches, stress points, any type of bend or stretch in it," he said. Holloway said the section of pipeline with corrosion and thinning was part of a 22-ft length that had been underground and was blown out by the force of the explosion. Holloway said investigators did not know yet how old the corrosion and thinning were or if they contributed to the blast. The pipeline, owned by El Paso Energy Corp., was 50 years old and recently passed a safety inspection, company officials have said.

24 August 2000 – A gasline that exploded near a campsite, killing 11 campers and critically burning another, must undergo a series of safety tests before it is put back into service, the federal government has ordered. The order issued by the US Office of Pipeline Safety yesterday requires the pipeline operated by El Paso Natural Gas Co. – as well as two neighbouring lines – to pass pressure tests in addition to X-ray and ultrasound structural testing. Investigators found corrosion in one section of pipe that blew Saturday (August 19). The National Transportation Safety Board yesterday labelled the explosion the deadliest pipeline accident in the continental United States in nearly 25 years.

24 August 2000 – El Paso Energy Corp. said today it hoped to restore service later this week on one natural gas mainline in New Mexico following a fiery explosion Saturday (August 19) that shut three of four lines on its southern pipeline system. "We hope to be able to bring back a 30-inch line later this week. We're continuing to work with the National Transportation Safety Board and the Office of Pipeline Safety, and are reviewing the OPS report," a company spokeswoman told Reuters. The spokeswoman said El Paso did manage to bring into service a smaller 16-inch diameter line that runs north-west of the area but is not part of the southern system, restoring approximately 100 million cubic feet of supply. She noted a fourth line in the southern system, also a 16-inch line, was not in use at the time of the blast. She said about half the system's total capacity of about 1.08 billion cubic feet was still curtailed. The spokeswoman said a combination of gas reserves already in storage, co-operation with customers and use of alternative paths to market on interconnecting pipelines has kept some gas flowing. Several big power plants have also switched from natural gas shipped on the El Paso line to alternative fuels as a way to cut back demand on the system.

21 August 2000 – El Paso Energy Corp. said late yesterday it was running tests to see if it could restore at least a partial flow of natural gas through a major pipeline system that was crippled by a deadly explosion on Saturday (August 19). El Paso spokesman Mel Scott said the explosion and fire, which claimed ten lives near Carlsbad in southern New Mexico, occurred in a 30-inch pipeline that carries natural gas from West Texas to energy-hungry markets in California. The pipeline is one of four that runs along the southern branch of the El Paso Natural Gas Co. pipeline system. None of the four southern-branch pipelines has been carrying gas since the explosion occurred. The system's northern branch was not affected by the blast. Scott said El Paso was focusing in particular on a second 30-inch pipeline that ran close to the crippled line, but which company officials believed was not damaged.

21 August 2000 – Jiangxi Province, China

A generator exploded at a steel works today in eastern China, killing 14 people, injuring 18 others and causing part of a workshop to collapse, state media said. The machine was being overhauled when it exploded, just after midnight, at the Pingxiang Iron and Steel Plant in Jiangxi province, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said. The explosion might have been caused by leaking oxygen, occurring shortly after the oxygen generator was switched on, said police in Pingxiang. The steel-making process involves pumping oxygen through molten steel to burn off impurities. The blast partially collapsed a two-story cement and brick workshop building where more than 40 employees were working, Xinhua said.

23 August 2000 – The death toll from an explosion at a steel works in Jiangxi province has risen to 19 people dead, with 24 injured and three others missing, mainland press reported. The accident occurred early yesterday at the Pingxiang Iron and Steel Plant in Jiangxi province when an oxygen generator exploded, causing part of a two-story cement and brick workshop to collapse, the official Xinhua news agency reported late yesterday. The generator was being overhauled when the accident occurred. Xinhua said the cause was under investigation. But earlier a police spokesman in Pingxiang said the machine exploded shortly after being switched on and an oxygen leak was suspected as the cause. Rescuers searched through the rubble of the collapsed building for victims and the governor of Jiangxi, Shu Shengwu, went to the plant to supervise the rescue work, Xinhua said.