Fatal explosion at Connecticut power plant08 February 2010 1pm GMT Monday 7 February. London. Emergency services chiefs at the Kleen Energy power station in Connecticut where a gas explosion on Sunday blasted open one of the buildings under construction and killed five people engaged in purging gas lines say they are now optimistic that no-one else is missing in the rubble. Search and rescue crews continue to comb the debris nonetheless.
Kleen Energy Middletown is a 620 MW combined cycle facility with a Siemens power island. It is being built to supply electricity to Northeast Utilities’ Connecticut Light & Power company under a 15-year power purchase agreement. The plant is undergoing final construction as well as testing procedures and is due to come on line in the summer.
No definite cause of the explosion which injured at least twelve other people in addition to the fatalities has yet been identified but one witness is reported as saying that he had seen an explosion in a natural gas pipeline running near the plant at 11.17 am local time. The shockwave from the explosion was felt and heard at least thirty miles away.
The tragedy is the latest in a string of gas purging related industrial accidents across the USA. In November 2007 an explosion at a Dominion Virginia Power coal-fired plant in Massachusetts killed three workers and in January 2007 one worker and nine others were injured at an American Electric Power plant of the same type in Beverly Ohio. In February 2009 an explosion at a We Energies coal-fired power plant near Milwaukee burned six workers. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is still investigating.
And Federal investigations are still ongoing into the 9 June 9 2009 natural gas explosion at the ConAgra Slim Jim production plant in Garner N. C. which caused four deaths and other injuries that sent 67 people to hospital. It was that event in particular that triggered new investigations by the Federal Chemical Safety Board on the issue of gas line purging and identified other explosions caused by workers who were unsafely venting gas lines inside buildings. This resulted in a vote by the Safety Board only last week (4 February) to recommend that national and international code writers strengthen their guidelines to require outdoor venting of gas lines or an approved safety plan to do it indoors.
"Nuclear is Unclear " -- A confucian in confusion.
发表于 2010-2-10 16:34:06