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Hundreds of inner-Sydney residents were taken to evacuation shelters when a BLEVE of unknown cause turned into a full-scale emergency. The incident occurred on 1 April (Sunday) at approximately 8.45pm at the Boral LPG distribution depot at St Peters, an inner-south industrial suburb. The massive explosion & blaze, with temperatures of several thousand degrees Celsius, burned for more than 8 hours as police & emergency service crews cordoned off a 3km radius safe zone.
The blaze began with the explosion of a small gas tank. The fire then spread along ruptured gas pipes to 4 main 100-tonne steel storage tanks, each at least 60% full (holding 40,000 litres LPG). Gas was still flowing from the Caltex refinery at nearby Kurnell through a cylinder at the depot. Firemen had to break into the depot, & were hampered by availability to water, with the gas tanks location at the depot's entrance. Flames heated-up LPG inside the tanks, held in above-ground concrete moorings (not protected by mounds of earth). As the liquid boiled to 243 degrees Celsius, it turned to gas & expanded, until the pressure critically built up inside the cylinder & its 15cm thick steel walls ruptured.
The inferno produced searing, blinding white flashes of gas-generated fireballs (safety pressure valves released gas) like roman candles several kilometres into the night sky. Smaller explosions were caused by hundreds of portable gas cylinders inside a storeroom at Boral, sized 2kg to 240kg. Residents spilled onto the streets gaping at the series of huge white flashes followed by the whole area turning red. Power blackouts occurred after the first thundering explosion, which shattered windows. Two fire officers who were close to the unattended depot, whose main entrance was padlocked, were thrown against a wall after an explosion. One woman who was 400m from the depot when the explosions began, narrowly escaped death when a telegraph pole ripped from the ground fell near her. The rapidly-unfolding incident triggered a potential major disaster as firefighters requested to turn off the Kurnell gas inflow. An eerie whistle, like wind in a tunnel, from the burning gas, accompanied the light show.
One of the 30m long fractured cylinders shot off its mooring. When the metal at one end blew out, it was like a propelled rocket with an ignited ball of flames of vaporised gas. The cylinder then gouged a huge 2m crater in the earth, before it bounced up & commenced its journey of destruction. It fired through a wire fence into 3, 40-tonne tanks, which were propelled into the Alexandria Canal. Next it hit & flattened an electrical substation & a panel-beating workshop before nosediving into the canal, 300m away from its original position. It was not known how high it reached during its flight. It was a very still night & had it been a week day, it was a very busy section of the city, with thousands employed.With windy conditions the fireballs could have carried to the jet fuel storage 20m away.
Mascot International Airport was located just hundreds of metres away on the other side of the canal. Trains in the St Peters area were halted & all air traffic was stopped & a ban put on flying over the city. This followed when a passenger plane on its final approach into Mascot was buffetted by shockwaves when a fireball went off. Plane passengers, the airport & a nearby hotel were evacuated & airport fire crews placed on full alert. Fears were raised that the fuel storage could have ignited. The blaze was eventually contained when Boral engineers released relief safety valves on the tanks to allow the dangerous gas to disperse without igniting. Factory storage buildings close to the explosions were destroyed. Those that survived had doors blasted off hinges, roofs lifted & windows shattered. Underfoot, thick grey mud had formed. Elsewhere, on the depot's 10ha site were the charred ruins of 10 gas trucks, 3 gas tanker semi-trailers & a row of storerooms whch backed onto the main row of cylinders. An adjacent bitumen production plant was destroyed.
Residents were not allowed back to their homes until daybreak. Sightseers keen on getting a better view hampered emergency crews as they dodged cordoning-off areas on the fringe of the exclusion zone. The Boral plant was built in 1968 to satisfy standards which in 1990 were outdated. Stringent safety conditions introduced in the 1980s by the NSW Dept Planning were not retrospective. The site was unattended at night but routine security patrols were made.
Canberra Times, 20/6/1998; Sun Herald, 8/4/1990; Sydney Morning Herald, Daily Telegraph, Melbourne Herald, Melbourne Sun, 3/4/1990; Daily Mirror, Melbourne Age, 2/4/1990; |
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