CANADA:
LIQUID OXYGEN LEAK LEADS TO EVACUATION OF MINT, http://www.metronews.ca/ottawa/local/ar
ticle/564743--liquid-oxygen-leak-leads-to-evacuation-of-mint
A tanker
truck spewing liquid oxygen from a jammed valve forced firefighters to
evacuate the Royal Canadian Mint and close down Sussex Drive for several
hours yesterday.
Firefighters were called to deal with the leak around
11:40 a.m.
The truck was unloading liquid oxygen in a driveway
south of the mint when the valve got stuck open.
While
there was no threat of poison from the fumes from the liquid oxygen,
which the mint uses in the silver refining process, Ottawa district fire
chief Michael MacCormac said they were concerned about the risk of
explosion.
=93We don=92t want to do anything to the vehicle to
create any hazards,=94 he said.
MacCormac said there was
concern that the leak could freeze the tires, causing them to explode
and throw metal shards off the rims.
The fire department
evacuated the mint and the former war museum next door.
People in
sections of the National Gallery of Canada were advised to turn off
their air conditioning units and stay away from their
windows.
The truck was carrying up to 25,000 litres of liquid
oxygen, said McCormac. The delivery to the mint was the first of the
day.
The company did a slow bleed of the tanker until it
was emptied of liquid oxygen.
-----------------------
FOXBOROUGH, MASS -- A New
Hampshire man was at the wheel of a tanker truck that rolled over in
Massachusetts Sunday.
The crash
occurred in Foxborough, on route 95 southbound at the route 495 off
ramp. The truck spilled 11,000 gallons of jet fuel. The crash closed the
highway for hours while hazmat teams cleaned up. Crews used foam and dry
ice to contain the spill.
Richard
Williams, 36, of Manchester was taken to a Rhode Island Hospital where
he was treated and released for injuries.
The truck is owned by C. White and Son Incorporated.
Williams was on his way to T.F. Green International Airport in Warwick,
RI.
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A chemical fire inside an airplane parts manufacturing
plant in west Oklahoma City caused the business to be evacuated
Friday.
A 6-foot by 12-foot room where titanium is kept caught
fire about 10:15 a.m. inside Pro-Fab, 900 N Morgan Road, said fire
Battalion Chief Tommy Iago.
No one was injured, but employees were evacuated until
firefighters could get chemicals from Will Rogers World Airport to use
on the fire.
Titanium was still smoldering about noon, Iago said,
but the fire was under control.
Iago did not know the cause
and did not have a damage estimate.
Titanium is scraped off
airplane parts at the plant, and somehow dust or particles ignited, Iago
said.
Oklahoma City and airport firefighting crews wore
protective gear to clean up the chemical fire.
The fire
was contained to the room where the titanium is stored.
-----------------------
Kuna, Idaho -- Authorities spent much of
Thursday night cleaning up a large and active meth lab in South Ada
County.
Hazmat, fire and police crews from Boise, Ada County
and Kuna found the operation at 13131 South Five Mile near Kuna
and called it the largest meth lab they'd ever
seen.
They say the lab was likely turning out one ounce of
meth at a time, considered a fairly large quantity. Richard
Eubanks, 38, of Boise is facing drug charges. When detectives
went to his home to arrest him, they found an active cooking meth lab in
progress.
Teams have since found a second site in an outbuilding
-- a former lab -- on the same property.
-----------------------
"A lot of
old chemicals" were found in a garage following a hazardous material
alert Friday.
A sanitation worker was splashed in the face and eyes
while dumping garbage into a Groot Industries truck.
Pat
Sullivan of Mundelein was loading garbage into the truck's front
dumpster around 10 a.m. when an unknown chemical splashed him in the
face in the 1400 block of Fulton Street. An ambulance was called, and he
was taken to Vista Medical Center East, Waukegan, where he was treated
and released.
The liquid came from an open bottle in a homeowner's
garbage can. Upon further checking, fire officials found more chemicals
stored in the elderly homeowner's garage, said Assistant Chief Bill
Beetschem.
The hazardous material alert was called to get an
expert opinion from other departments. They also contacted the Illinois
Environmental Protection Agency and Chemtrec, which identifies chemicals
and gives officials on the scene advice about what they are
facing.
"We identified what they had, and it was a lot of old
chemicals," he said.
Because the garage had limited access, officials
handed the investigation over to the EPA.
-----------------------
Twenty-eight people have been injured in a chemical
leak at a frozen food distribution centre in
Staffordshire.
One man suffered severe ammonia burns to his arms in
the incident in a compressor room at Brakes in Bonehill Road, Tamworth,
at about 1150 BST.
The leak left another 27 people needing treatment,
seven of whom were taken to hospital but none were
detained.
Police closed off nearby roads, resulting in severe
congestion around Tamworth town centre.
A
spokesman for West Midlands Ambulance Service said initial reports
suggested there were a large number of casualties.
Breathing
difficulties
"The most seriously injured
was a man in his 30s with 15% burns having been contaminated by the
chemical involved," he said.
"He was decontaminated with water by firefighters and
was taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham."
The
spokesman added another four people complaining of breathing
difficulties were taken to Good Hope Hospital at Sutton
Coldfield.
