Fires and explosions

Citation

(1999), "Fires and explosions", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 8 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.1999.07308dac.005

Fires and explosions

Fires and explosions

29 July 1998 - Gueizhou Province, China

Keywords: Explosions, Fires

Gas canisters exploded on a train in south-west China bringing down a railway tunnel and killing more than 80 people, a Hong Kong newspaper said today. The train was passing through the 800-metre tunnel between Guiyang, the capital of Gueizhou province, and Changsha in central China on 10 July when the canisters exploded one after another, the Ming Pao Daily News said. The tunnel collapsed and many railway workers sent to repair the damage were killed by a further explosion caused by a build-up of gas, the newspaper said. It did not give details but said most of the dead were workers caught in the tunnel explosion. Chinese Authorities were not immediately available to comment.

4 August 1998 - Berlin, Germany

Keywords: Explosions

Around a dozen people were missing today after a Berlin apartment block collapsed following an explosion, German rescue workers said. Six people were pulled alive from the rubble and police said nine residents were now known to be in safety. Rescue workers at the scene of the blast in the western district of Steglitz said up to 14 people were still missing. A spokesman for fire fighters, however, put the figure at ten. Police said rescue workers could see one man alive under the rubble and were in the process of freeing him. There was no immediate word on the survivor's condition. Witnesses said the building, which was several floors high, collapsed after an explosion in the early hours of the morning. The cause of the blast was not yet known but a gas explosion was one possibility, a police spokesman said. Around 100 rescue workers combed the scene of the blast, using dogs to try to locate people buried in the rubble.

5 August 1998 - Rescue workers have found the body of a second person killed when a Berlin apartment block collapsed after a suspected gas explosion, officials said today. Up to five more people are still feared buried in the rubble of the four-storey building in the western district of Steglitz which collapsed yesterday morning. Rescue workers earlier pulled the body of an elderly woman from the debris. The second body was discovered soon afterwards but police said they had not yet been able to free it from the rubble. Neither body has been identified. Fire fighters said recovery work at the site was likely to last all through today, hindered by the risk that further parts of the building could collapse. The cause of the blast was not clear but police said a gas explosion was the most likely explanation.

5 August 1998 - The bodies of five people, including a 13-year-old boy, were recovered today from the rubble of a collapsed Berlin apartment block. Emergency workers had searched through the night hoping to find residents alive in the debris of the building, reduced to a pile of rubble after a suspected gas explosion yesterday. They found the bodies of two women and the teenager in the morning and discovered two mens' bodies later in the day. Two grown-up daughters of one of the women are still missing. Rescuers said there was little hope of finding them alive if they had been in the four-storey building in the western district of Steglitz at the time of the blast. Officials said the body of the boy was recovered near the bottom of the building. Police said a gas explosion remained the most likely cause of the explosion but it could take days or weeks before they could say for sure.

14 August 1998 - Northern China

Keywords: Explosions

Two gas explosions in small coal mines in northern China have killed 32 people and injured six, the Workers' Daily said today. Rescue workers had saved 40 miners and found 25 bodies in a village-run coal mine in Shanxi province's Zezhou county after the blast on 10 August. Four miners were injured, it said. One survivor said he felt hot temperatures and still air in the pit before the blast. The cause of the explosion was under investigation, it said. The blast was the fourth this year in the county's 380 village-run coal mines, many of which have no licenses and were run with no safety equipment it said.

16 August 1998 - Beloye, Ukraine

Keywords: Explosions

There was an explosion today at a coal mine in eastern Ukraine, trapping 28 miners, an emergencies ministry spokesman said. The spokesman said 27 miners were working in a pit at the 19th Party Congress mine in the village of Beloye in the Luhansk region when methane gas exploded at 1240 hrs (2140, UTC) 610 metres below ground. Rescue teams are on scene.

16 August 1998 - Following received from BBC, dated today: Mine rescue teams have provided the final tragic death toll of the victims of the disaster at the Luhanskvuhiltya mining corporation's l9th Party Congress mine. By 1600, Moscow time (1200, UTC), the bodies of 24 miners had been discovered in the underground workings. Only three of the 27 miners who were working survived. They are currently being checked over in a burns unit. The preliminary data indicate that the disaster was caused by an underground methane gas explosion, though the final analysis will be done by the experts of a government commission which is working at the site of the accident.

16 August 1998 - There was an explosion today at a coal mine in eastern Ukraine, trapping 28 miners, an emergencies ministry spokesman said. The spokesman said 27 miners were working in a pit at the 19th Party Congress mine in the village of Beloye in the Luhansk region when methane gas exploded at 1240 hrs (2140, UTC) 610 metres below ground. Rescue teams are on scene.

17 August 1998 - The death toll in a gas explosion at a Ukrainian coal mine rose to 20 today, and officials said four other miners were still missing. Methane gas exploded yesterday at a coal mine in eastern Ukraine and initial reports said 17 miners had died. "By this morning, the bodies of 20 miners were recovered but another four are missing", a spokesman for Ukraine's coal ministry said today. Ukraine's emergencies ministry said 35 rescue teams were still searching for the missing workers. Spokeswoman Susanna Chernenko said methane gas exploded early on Sunday when 28 miners were working at a mine called the 19th Party Congress near the eastern industrial city of Luhansk. Ukraine's Labour Minister, Ivan Sakhan, told state television the government would investigate the blast.