(update) Texas Fertilizer Explosion may be deliberate bombing

[L4xord]

Turned on CNN. Seems there's been an explosion with an unknown amount of people dead with hundreds possibly injured. And big fire.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-in-texas-fertiliser-plant-blast-8577619.html

 

[L4xord]

The media's most certainly going to connect this with the Boston bombing...

 

[chemisttree]

The news I saw specifically mentioned that it was unrelated to the Boston bombing. Fire department was called to the scene for a fire and a short time later ... BOOM! Sounds very similar to the Texas City disaster.

 

[Chronos]

Sounds like an ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosion.

 

[chemisttree]

Smoldering ammonium nitrate decomposes to produce nitrous oxide which can detonate if heated enough. Fuel-air bomb.

 

[Adyssa]

That's a massive explosion

 

[Evo]

It's horrendous.

Rescue workers searched the smoldering ruins of a fertilizer plant Thursday for survivors of a monstrous explosion that leveled homes and businesses in every direction across the Texas prairie. As many as 15 people were feared dead and more than 160 others injured.

The explosion rained burning embers and debris down on terrified residents. It leveled a four-block area around the plant, badly damaging or destroying up to 75 houses, a 50-unit apartment complex, a middle school and a nursing home.

http://news.yahoo.com/rescuers-search-ruins-texas-fertilizer-plant-145136932.html?_sr=1

 

[jtbell]

The railroad line that runs past that fertilizer plant is now "very narrow gauge":

http://broadwaylion.com/LION/WestTexas.jpg

 

[Borek]

The railroad line that runs past that fertilizer plant is now "very narrow gauge":

http://broadwaylion.com/LION/WestTexas.jpg

Just wow.

 

[edward]

(CNN) -- The fertilizer plant that blew up in Texas last week warned state and local officials but not federal agencies that it had 270 tons of highly volatile ammonium nitrate on site, according to regulatory records.

The April 17 fire and explosion at West Fertilizer Co. killed 14 people and devastated the small town of West, Texas. Investigators have said they're not sure how much ammonium nitrate was actually on site at the time of the explosion, however, since plant records were destroyed in the blast.

Bold mine

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/25/us/texas-explosion-plant/index.html

There is no information on how the fire started or what was burning?

The fire fighters knew there would be an explosion but stayed and kept their fire hoses on the fire until a nursing home across the street was evacuated.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlin...nt-would-explode-but-stayed-firefighters-say/

 

[Evo]

The arrest Friday of a first responder to the deadly April 17 fertilizer plant blast in West, Texas, on explosives charges, is a new wrinkle that may call into question whether the incident that killed 14 people – including 12 firefighters and paramedics – was in fact a tragic industrial accident, as most people in the area believed.

On Monday, investigators said they had ruled out weather and natural phenomena as causes of the blast, which happened about 20 minutes after a fire began tearing through a fertilizer and seed building on the property.

The Reed arrest and revelations of a new criminal probe raise questions about criminal mischief, even terrorism, given that the blast occurred two days after two bombs exploded near the Boston Marathon finish line, killing three people and injuring at least 260 others. In the West explosion, which registered 2.1 on the Richter scale, nearly 200 people were injured, and a nursing home, school, and dozens of houses were destroyed or damaged.

http://news.yahoo.com/unexpected-twists-case-deadly-blast-texas-fertilizer-plant-194420106.html

 

[jim hardy]

Highly volatile?
It doesn't boil until 210C, but that's also its flash point...

However, might spraying it with water be a mistake?

Air & Water Reactions
Water soluble. Hot aqueous solutions of the nitrate above 50% conc., under confinement may decompose explosively...

http://www.chemicalbook.com/ChemicalProductProperty_EN_CB4167347.htm