Big Explosions

WHAT DOES A LARGE DIAMETER HIGH PRESSURE GAS PIPELINE EXPLOSION LOOK AND SOUND LIKE?

Manitoba, Canada

In January 2014, a natural gas pipeline exploded near Otterburne, Man., 50 kilometres south of Winnipeg, burning for more than 12 hours. This was only a 30 inch high pressure gas pipeline.

Read the full CBCNews article here

Northwestern Minnesota

Fred and Julie Nicholls woke up early Monday morning in far northwestern Minnesota to a loud booming sound and the feeling of their house shaking.

“We’d just woken up when all of a sudden it just hit,” said Fred Nicholls, 73. “I’d never heard nothing like it in my life. It was just hell on earth, I tell you, when you see those flames.”

His home is about a mile away from where an underground natural gas pipeline ruptured, causing an explosion and large fire at 6:25 a.m. about three miles northwest of Warren in rural Marshall County.

Read the full News article here.

Benton Charter Township, Michigan

This is video from the scene of a major gas line rupture in Benton Township. Mark Parren, the WSBT correspondent on scene, says that roar you hear is the sound of the gas. Officials asked people to evacuate if you were within one mile of the leak, feel unsafe or smell gas in your home. Luckily this one never exploded.

Read the full WSBT News article here. Listen to the Sound of the Pipeline Rupture.

Sissionville, West Virginia

A 20″ high pressure gas transmission pipeline exploded in December 2012 sending a section of the 20″ pipe 40 feet from where it was buried. The gas ignited and burned so hot that it charred 800 feet of Interstate 77.

Read the full NBC News article here

NOTE: the following is raw footage containing strong language.

San Bruno, California

In 2010, an electrical ‘glitch’ caused a spike in the high pressure 30″ gas pipeline resulting in a catastrophic explosion in the residential neighborhood of San Bruno, CA destroyed 38 homes, injured 66 people and killed 8. The blast caused a magnitude 1.1 earthquake, 40 foot deep crater and a wall of fire more than 1,000 feet high.

Read the articles here on ABC News

Edison, New Jersey

Per the New York Times: “A natural gas pipeline explosion that awestruck witnesses compared to a blinding, scorching nuclear blast turned a neighborhood in the central New Jersey town of Edison early yesterday into a war zone of flames, panic and chaos.” The likely cause of this 36″ pipeline explosion was leaking gas.

Read the full New York Times article here

Moss Bluff, Texas

Spectra Energy’s underground gas storage reservoir had two explosions within a 24 hour period as a result of leaking gas. The evacuation zone was over 3 miles and the resulting fire could be seen 20 miles away.

Read the full USAToday article here

Darrouzett, Texas

Utility workers hit a pipeline causing an explosion that killed two people. Video of the site showed a blackened patch of grassland hundreds of feet in diameter. In the center of the patch stretched a white strip of ground that contained the smoldering carcasses of three 18-wheel trucks, a van, a flatbed truck and two tractors.

Read the full CNN article here

Cleburne, Texas

Utility workers hit a 36″ pipeline resulting in an explosion. One worker was killed. For about 10 minutes, it was so loud that it was like there was an 18-wheeler rumbling in your driveway. Heat from the blast forced firefighters to stay about a half-mile away until the gas flow was shut off, and they were unable to douse the flames. The fire took 2 hours to put out.

Read the full NBC NEWS article here

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