West Texas Fertilizer Plant Explosion. Possible 100 Dead.

2.1 Seismic Event Recorded from this explosion...

'Like a nuclear bomb': Fertilizer plant blast levels homes, kills 2 in Texas town

By Lateef Mungin, CNN

A massive explosion at a fertilizer plant in the small Texas town of West left at least two people dead, leveled several homes and prompted a wide scale evacuation in the community of 2,600 people.

"It was a like a nuclear bomb went off," Mayor Tommy Muska said. "Big old mushroom cloud. There are a lot of people that got hurt. There are a lot of people that will not be here tomorrow."

Fire officials fear that the number of casualties could rise as high as 60 to 70 dead, said Dr. George Smith, the emergency management system director of the city.

"That's a really rough number, I'm getting that figure from firefighters, we don't know yet," he said.

"We have two EMS personnel that are dead for sure, and there may be three firefighters that are dead."

Fireball in the sky

The blast took place at the West Fertilizer Plant, about 18 miles north of Waco, about 8:50 p.m. ET.

The explosion: What we know so far

It sent a massive fireball into the sky. Flames leaped over the roof of a structure and a plume of smoke rose high into the air.

"There are lots of houses that are leveled within a two-block radius," Smith said. "A lot of other homes are damaged as well outside that radius."

He estimated that between 10 to 15 buildings were demolished and about 50 damaged.

And the danger may not be over.

Risk remains

Residents are being evacuated because officials are worried that another tank at the facility might explode.

"What we are hearing is that there is one fertilizer tank that is still intact at the plant, and there are evacuations in place to make sure everyone gets away from the area safely in case of another explosion," said Ben Stratmann, a spokesman for Texas State Sen. Brian Birdwell.

Firefighters at the scene said they were concerned aboutanhydrous ammonia, a pungent gas with suffocating fumes that is used as a fertilizer.

When exposed to humans, it can cause severe burns if it combines with water in the body.

And exposure to high concentrations can lead to death.

What is anhydrous ammonia

The scene

State troopers in gas masks set up roadblocks, waving away cars coming off the highway.

The Federal Aviation Administration instituted a flight restriction over the town. Schools will be closed for the rest of the week, and officials urged everyone to stay away from school property.

Shortly after the explosion, more than 60 patients streamed intoHillcrest Hospital in Waco, suffering from "blast injuries, orthopedic injuries (and) a lot of lacerations," said hospital CEO Glenn Robinson.

While some of the injuries are minor, others are "quite serious," he said.

The West Fertilizer Plant is just north of Waco. A nursing home with 133 residents was near the plant.

Smith, the EMS director, said he didn't know whether there were casualties reported in the nursing home.

'It was intense'

Tommy Alford, who works in a convenience store about three miles from the plant, told CNN that several volunteer firefighters were at the store when they spotted smoke.

Alford said the firefighters headed toward the scene and then between five and 10 minutes later, he heard a massive explosion.

"It was massive; it was intense," Alford said.

Cheryl Marak, who sits on West's city council, said the impact of the blast knocked her to the ground.

"It demolished both the houses there, mine and my mom's and it killed my dog," she said.

Other residents had similar stories.

read more at http://www.cnn.com/

Live Updates: West Texas Fertilizer Plant Explosion Injures More Than 100

Apr 18, 2013 1:02am

1:43 a.m. ET: Mayor of West Tommy Muska said in a news conference said they are concerned about the wind – which they expect to change direction about 3 a.m.

Muska told residents to stay in inside because of the hydrous gas that is still in the air.

1:25 a.m. ET: The explosion registered as 2.1 magnitude quake according theUSGS. Residents about 30 miles away in the town of Buffford told ABC News that they felt the quake.

AP Photo/Waco Tribune Herald, Rod Aydelotte

1:21 a.m. ET: VIDEO: Homes and business were completely destroyed around the West, Texas, fertilizer plant.

1:09 a.m. ET:  Texas Department of Public Safety trooper D.L. Wilson said in a short news conference that there are more than 100 injuries with fatalities confirmed but did not specify how many deaths. Officials are searching for more people and are doing a house by house search.  About 133 people were evacuated from a nursing home.  About half the town has been evacuated.  Between 50-75 buildings were destroyed or damaged.

“Massive. Just like Iraq. Just like the Murray Building in Oklahoma City… So you can imagine what kind of damage we’re looking at,” Wilson said in describing the blast.

12:53 a.m. ET: Blood drives are planned for Thursday in Texas. Linda Goelzer of Carter Blood Care, the primary blood support service supporting more 58 counties, largest blood provider in Texas told ABC News the people in the community of West are “heart of gold people, like a Norman Rockwell painting.”

“The whole town is being evacuated. We had our blood supply pretty well stocked in Waco as of today but now we are sending more than 300 units of blood from Dallas Fort Worth down to Waco, that’s where patients are going. Many are being care-flighted to Parkland Hospital in Dallas for treatment at their burn center,” Goelzer said.

“Tonight our message to our donors is don’t everybody come at once, we will have patients for who knows how long who will be needing blood. Especially O-negative are needed, universal donor, will likely be expended tonight. What we tell people is that the blood helping people tonight is what’s already on the shelves. What we’ll need most is for consistency. We have blood drives everyday and we will have them tomorrow, we just don’t want people flooding in, in droves, like they did after 9/11. We’re asking our regular donors to keep coming throughout the week because we expect there will be many survivors.”

12:33 a.m. ET: At least 124 people hospitalized, with one hospital telling us that 20 more are on the way.  Of those, 38 considered serious.

AP Photo/Michael Ainsworth/The Dallas Morning News

12:19 a.m. ET: According to the CEO of Baptist Hillcrest Medical Center, Brett Esrock (in Waco) officials are triaging the wounded. Baptist has treated, or is treating 29 wounded, mostly minor to moderate injuries: cuts abrasions, broken bones, respiratory distress, and one critical injury. Hospital officials are being told they are about to receive an additional 20 patients “they are coming in ambulances cars vans, pretty much anything.” Other wounded people are also being sent to Hillsboro Regional Hospital, which has apparently received another 60 patients.  -  Matt Gutman

11:48 p.m. ET: West City Hall suffered significant damage according to Gail Scarborough with Texas Department of Public Safety. The middle school also caught on fire due to a gas leak in the building.

11:00 p.m. ET: Texas Gov. Rick Perry released the following statement on the explosion in West, Texas:  “We are monitoring developments and gathering information as details continue to emerge about this incident. We have also mobilized state resources to help local authorities. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of West, and the first responders on the scene.”

ABC

9:33 p.m. ET: According to a dispatcher at Texas Department of Public Safety, there were two explosions and a fire reported at a Fertilizer Plant in the town of West, Texas.

source: http://abcnews.go.com

Explosion at U.S. Power Plant Leaves Holes in Cooling Towers, Vehicles Airbags Set Off, and Homes Shaken.

‘Large’ explosion at U.S. power plant — Reports of holes in cooling towers — Homes shook, vehicle airbags set off 

Published: April 4th, 2013 at 8:20 pm ET
By ENENews 

WSBT, April 4, 2013 (h/t Anonymous tip): Authorities are investigating an explosion at a coal plant in Bartow County [30 miles NW of Atlanta, Georgia]. The Bartow County Sheriff’s Office is asking residents to avoid Georgia Power’s Plant Bowen on Covered Bridge Road. Roads in the area are closed. [...]

FOX 5: [...] It is not known how many people were injured. [...] crews were making sure that there was not a chemical spill before allowing workers on the scene. [...] There are reports that there are holes in the cooling towers. Some people nearby said that airbags in their vehicles near the plant were set off by the explosion. [...] Residents in the area reported their homes shaking and loud noises. A large amount of smoke was in the area, they said. Euharlee City Manager Trish Sullivan said it is a frightening, scary day for the city. She classified the explosion as “large.” [...]

source: enenews.com

No serious injuries from Plant Bowen explosion

Euharlee, Ga. — 

Georgia Power crews are investigating what caused an explosion inside their Plant Bowen facility late Thursday afternoon.

Authorities said workers were beginning maintenance in Unit 2 when the explosion happened.

Luckily, no one was seriously injured in the incident. Four people did have minor injuries.

Georgia Power said the plant's four units are offline, but
it does not expect any disruption in service because of
the explosion.

At last check, authorities are attempting to release nonessential employees at the plant, deputies said.

The plant is the second-largest generating power plant in the Western Hemisphere and has 440 employees.

source: 

wsbtv.com

Russia Gets Hit By Meteorite. Is This a Piece of Asteroid 2012 DA14 Coming to the Sky Near You Today?

• Moment meteorite exploded in the sky above Russian town as doctors treat 950 people injured when sonic boom shattered windows


• Large object flashed across the sky at 9.20am local time 
• Pictures show a streak of smoke followed by several bright blasts of flames
• 
  
• 82 of the injured are children and two are in intensive care
• 
  
• Landed in a lake near Chebarkul, a neighbouring town 
• 6,000 square feet of a roof at a zinc factory collapsed 
• One local said it 'was like a scene from the Armageddon movie'
• 
  
• Same day as Asteroid 2012 DA14, which is due to skim Earth's orbit tonight




• The city of Chelyabinsk, 900 miles east of Moscow and close to the Kazakhstan border, took the brunt of the super sonic impact.







Spectacular sky: The Urals region was struck by falling meteorite fragments which fell in the city of Chelyabinsk, 900 miles east of Moscow and close to the Kazakhstan border







• Tim O'Brien, associate director of the University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory, said the injuries were caused when the meteor created a sonic boom.   'This reasonably large chunk of rock was moving faster than the speed of sound, maybe 20,000 miles per hour. It made a sonic boom in the atmosphere, and that hit buildings and shattered windows. That is what seems to have caused the injuries,' he explained. 


• A six metre wide hole was found in the ground close to Lake Chebarkul, said Russian military sources cited by RIA Novosti news agency. 


• Earlier it was thought the main body of the meteorite had hit the lake.  'The meteorite that passed over the Chelyabinsk region fell into a body of water 1km from the city of Chebarkul,' said a statement posted on the website of Chelyabinsk governor, Mikhail Yurevich.


• According to an unconfirmed report in Russia Today, the meteorite was intercepted by Russian air defense.


• The strike came on the same day that Asteroid 2012 DA14 is due to skim the orbit of the Earth tonight.  But astronomers say that it is probably just a coincidence -  Dr Robert Massey of the Royal Astronomical Society told MailOnline: 'As I understand it, the Russian meteorite(s) were travelling from east to west whereas 2012 DA14 will be travelling from north to south.'


• Pictures show a streak of smoke followed by several bright blasts of flames and eyewitnesses spoke of several devastating explosions.


• Mobile phones are only working intermittently and there were localised power cuts.


• According to RT.com, the Urals regional centre of the Emergency Ministry claimed it sent out a mass text message warning residents about a possible meteorite shower.  But eyewitnesses said they either never received it, or got the message after the explosion had already occurred.


Fear: First reports suggested that there had been a plane crash but officials confirmed it was one or more meteorites falling to Earth


Wounded: This woman suffered cuts across her face when the sonic boom of the meteor sent broken glass flying



The emergencies ministry said that 10,000 rescue workers had been dispatched to help the injured and locate those needing help.




• All schools and kindergartens were closed in Chelyabinsk region today.

Damaged: A zinc factory in Chelyabinsk was seen with a partially collapsed roof and walls in the morning after meteor pieces rained on the town

Moment of impact: A pair, seen on CCTV, cower from the impact as the window near them explodes

• The Russian Academy of Sciences is estimating the meteor weighed about 10 tons. 

• The academy said in a statement hours fall that the meteor entered the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of at least 54,000 kph (33,000 mph) and shattered about 30-50 kilometres (18-32 miles) above ground.

• One eyewitness Gulnara Dudka, in her 20s, gave a dramatic account of the meteorite, telling how she feared 'doomsday' had arrived, reported the Siberian Times.

• Residents in one 19 storey block reported feeling the shockwaves of the explosions.

• The sounds of car alarms and breaking windows could be heard in the area, said a witness, and there were reports that the internet and mobile networks were temporarily down.

• The meteorite flew across the Russian sky from the direction of Kazakhstan, its trajectory going over southern Siberia, above the Tyumen, Kurgan and Sverdlovsk regions, said the head of the Urals regional branch of the Emergencies Ministry press service, Vadim Grebennikov.

• Officials stressed that radiation levels remained normal amid fears that one of dozens of nuclear facilities in the region could have been hit. 

Ruined: The sounds of car alarms and breaking windows could be heard in the area, said a witness, and there were reports that the internet and mobile networks were temporarily down

• Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the nationalist leader noted for vehement statements, said 'It's not meteors falling, it's the test of a new weapon by the Americans,' the RIA Novosti news agency reported. 'At the moment we are checking the territories and counting how many towns and settlements suffered from it.  'Preliminary information says the meteorite did not fall down but exploded in the air. '

Destroyed: The building of the local zinc plant badly damaged by a shockwave from a meteorite impact

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2279020/Russian-meteorite-Moment-meteorite-exploded-doctors-treat-500-people-injured.html#ixzz2KzNUsU5a
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• The site of Friday's spectacular show is about 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles) west of Tunguska, which 1908 was the site of the largest recorded explosion of a space object plunging to Earth. That blast, attributed to a comet or asteroid fragment, is generally estimated to have been about 10 megatons; it leveled some 80 million trees.

• Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said the incident showed the need for leading world powers to develop a system to intercept objects falling from space.  "At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

• Small pieces of space debris — usually parts of comets or asteroids — that are on a collision course with the Earth are called meteoroids. They become meteors when they enter the Earth'satmosphere. Most meteors burn up in the atmosphere, but if they survive the frictional heating and strike the surface of the Earth they are called meteorites.  Meteors typically cause sizeable sonic booms when they enter the atmosphere because they are traveling much faster than the speed of sound. Injuries on the scale reported Friday, however, are extraordinarily rare.

read more at http://www.newsday.com/news/world/russian-meteor-shower-causes-blasts-injures-hundreds-1.4652395

for the following video... Published on Feb 15, 2013 Multiple meteors touched down in Central Russia in Ural region February 15th. These meteors caused injury from shattered windows, and broken class. It is believed these meteors broke off from the larger meteor 2012-Da14, which missed the earth by less than 30,000 miles the same day. Had Da-14 stuck earth, it would have destroyed everything within a 10 mile radius much like a nuclear bomb. In this video we see a building getting damaged.
for the following video... At 7:17 AM on the morning of June 30, 1908, a mysterious explosion occurred in the skies over Siberia. It was caused by the impact and breakup of a large meteorite, at an altitude roughly six kilometers in the atmosphere. Realistic pictures of the event are unavailable. However, Russian scientists collected eyewitness accounts of the event. I believe that we now know enough about large impacts to "decode" the subjective descriptions of the witnesses and create realistic views of this historic asteroid impact as seen from different distances.

Russia is no stranger to this type of event. A huge event happened in 1908 called the Tunguska Event.

A Serial Bomber in Phoenix

By Scott Stewart | May 31, 2012

A small improvised explosive device (IED) detonated at a Salvation Army distribution center in Phoenix, Ariz., on the afternoon of May 24. Two Salvation Army employees discovered the explosive device, which was concealed inside a yellow, hand-held 6-volt flashlight, as they were sorting through a box of donated items. The IED exploded when one of the employees picked up the flashlight and attempted to turn it on. The blast was not very powerful, and the two employees suffered only minor injuries.

This was the third incident in the Greater Phoenix area in recent weeks involving an IED concealed in a flashlight. Two explosive devices very similar to the May 24 IED exploded May 13 and May 14 in Glendale, Ariz., a city in the Greater Phoenix metropolitan area. Both devices were abandoned in public places. In the May 13 incident, a woman discovered a yellow, hand-held 6-volt flashlight next to a tree outside a Glendale business. When the woman picked up the flashlight and attempted to turn it on, it exploded, causing minor scratches and bruises to her face and hands. It also inflicted minor wounds to a woman beside her. The next day, a man found an identical flashlight in a ditch where he was working in another part of Glendale. He was lightly injured when the flashlight exploded as he attempted to turn it on.

So far, the explosive devices have failed to cause significant injury or death, but they do seem to indicate that there is a serial bombmaker operating in the Phoenix area. While it is not yet clear what the bombmaker's motives are, past cases of serial bombers suggest that the publicity he has received and the fear he has invoked will likely influence him to continue manufacturing explosive devices until he is captured. (Based on earlier cases involving serial bombers, it is also safe to assume that the culprit in the Phoenix area is a man.) The bombmaker's method of concealing his explosive devices may also change after gaining publicity for this wave of attacks. Finally, there is a chance that the destructive effect of the bombmaker's devices will increase as he becomes more proficient at building IEDs. Read More »

Source: Stratfor.com