Free Republic

Aug. 5 (UPI) -- A gas explosion in a North Korean city across the China border may have injured dozens of people and killed several others, according to multiple South Korean news services. The explosion occurred about 6:10 p.m. Monday in the city of Hyesan, South Korean news service Daily NK reported Wednesday. The cause of the accident was likely a gas explosion that took place in a multi-family residential building in the Tapsong district of Hyesan. Homes built side by side, referred to as "harmonica housing," were destroyed in a chain reaction of explosions, a North Korea-based source told...

First responders on scene. Just happened.

Workers at a Maryland office space are lucky to be alive after narrowly escaping a powerful gas explosion that authorities said 'totaled' the building. The incident started just before 7am on Sunday when someone pulled the fire alarm at the Lakewood Office Building and shopping center in Columbia Maryland, a town located about 19 miles southwest of Baltimore, authorities said. Howard County Fire and Rescue emergency crews responded to the scene where fire fighters found gas hissing out of a crater in the parking lot. They made sure the shopping center was completely evacuated just before the office exploded around...

All seven victims in the Silver Spring explosion are now accounted for, while the intense investigation into the deadly blast that destroyed an apartment building kicks into high gear. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the explosion at the apartment complex. Investigators have been on scene since last week. Seven bodies have since been recovered from the rubble. Police believe, unfortunately, some of those may belong to people still reported missing. Recovery and rescue efforts continue in Silver Spring. A week later, the rubble and debris is as prominent as ever in the deadly fire and explosion that shook...

To the frantic manager of a Coon Rapids Burger King Friday night, the choice was to act fast or face disaster. A caller who said he was a fire department official said there was a gas leak in the building and that unless the windows were smashed, a gas buildup in the building would cause an explosion. So the manager and Burger King employees evacuated the restaurant and started smashing ground floor windows. Every single one. Problem was, it was a hoax. The caller was no firefighter. There was no gas.

California Governor Jerry Brown finally declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, concerning the ongoing, currently unstoppable methane gas leak spewing from Aliso Canyon that has created a nightmare for residents of Porter Ranch. “I will tell you, this goes well beyond Porter Ranch. We’ve had complaints from as far as Chatsworth, Northridge, and Granada Hills,” emphasized Los Angeles City Councilman Mitchell Englander during a Porter Ranch town hall meeting on December 28. “Apparently this plume of toxic chemicals and whatever it might be, doesn’t know zip codes […] This is the equivalent of the BP oil spill on land,...

Since initially reporting on California's Alison Canyon gas leak, more details have emerged on the scale (and potential for no solution) of the problem as the infamous Erin Brockovich writes, "the enormity of the Aliso Canyon gas leak cannot be overstated. Gas is escaping through a ruptured pipe more than 8,000 feet underground, and it shows no signs of stopping," as according to the California Air Resources Board, methane - a greenhouse gas 72 times more impactful in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide - has been escaping from the Aliso Canyon site with force equivalent “to a volcanic eruption”...

Federal safety authorities launched an investigation on Thursday into a gas explosion that caused the collapse a day earlier of two New York City apartment buildings, killing seven people and injuring dozens of others. The still-smoldering rubble prevented investigators from getting close enough to examine the main pipe that supplies natural gas to the Upper East Side neighborhood, said Robert Sumwalt, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, which reviews accidents involving natural gas. When firefighters say the area is safe, he said, investigators will conduct a pressure test on the pipe to find the location of the leak...

Rep. Charles Rangel called an apparent building explosion and collapse in his home district in Harlem, New York the most “horrific” thing that has hit his home district in his time in Washington and his community’s Sept. 11. “I’ve never had anything this horrific that’s happened in my community since I’ve been in Washington,” Rangel told NBC’s New York affiliate Wednesday as news reports of the fire response continued to come in. “I hope that soon, and very soon, it will be contained and we can go back to some degree of normal normalcy.”

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – One person is dead and at least two dozen others were rushed to area hospitals for apparent carbon monoxide poisoning at a mall on Long Island Saturday evening. As CBS 2′s Hazel Sanchez reported, police said 55-year-old Steven Nelson, the manager of the Legal Sea Foods restaurant located at the Walt Whitman Shops in Huntington Station, was killed by the odorless gas. total of 28 people were also rushed to area hospitals and treated for elevated levels of carbon monoxide, 1010 WINS reported. “The original call was that a woman had fallen and had a head...

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - The investigation into an explosion on the south side of Indianapolis could take weeks, an official with Citizens Energy said on Sunday. Two people were killed, and more than a dozen homes were damaged or destroyed after a large explosion rocked a south side neighborhood late Saturday night. The Indianapolis Fire Department says the explosion happened in the 8400 block of Fieldfare Way, which is in a subdivision just off of Sherman Avenue south of Stop 11 Road. Citizens Energy shut off gas to all the homes in the subdivision and investigated potential gas issues in the...

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Firefighters are still trying to figure out what caused a gas leak that prompted a ship to be evacuated at the Port of Los Angeles. The incident began Friday afternoon in the 700 block of East New Dock Street at Henry Ford Avenue. Fire officials said an unknown gas was leaking from a large container in the cargo ship. Fire crews unloaded several containers one by one before stopping the spill. Officials still don't know what kind of gas was leaking. The ship was leaving Los Angeles when the leak was reported. Officials have not said...

This place in Uzbekistan is called by locals “The Door to Hell”. It is situated near the small town of Darvaz. The story of this place lasts already for 35 years. Once the geologists were drilling for gas. Then suddenly during the drilling they have found an underground cavern, it was so big that all the drilling site with all the equipment and camps got deep deep under the ground. None dared to go down there because the cavern was filled with gas. So they ignited it so that no poisonous gas could come out of the hole, and since...

Heard from Shep Smith just now. Witnesses smelled gas at least 2 dead.

(LEAD) Gas leaks into Seoul subway station, wounding nearly 40 people SEOUL, Sept. 8 (Yonhap) -- Unidentified gas leaked into a subway station in downtown Seoul on Friday, injuring dozens of people, police and witnesses said. At least 39 merchants and passers-by in an underground shopping area of the Jonggak Subway Station collapsed and were taken to nearby hospitals after inhaling the gas, which began seeping out around 4:20 p.m., police said.

Funny thing happened on the way to the office...okay, not really funny, but upon entering my office I was smacked in the face with the overwhelming smell of propane (insert Hank Hill joke). Our office shares the same building with a restaraunt (source of the propane leak) and a veteranarian's office, so I've spent the last few hours evacuating cats, dogs and some kinda lizard from the vet and trying to convince English-challenged kitchen staff to evacuate. But that's over, I'm back at home and it's time for a beer. Oh, and the OFST ping list is on a 'puter...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Three crew members were killed by an apparent methane gas leak aboard a cruise ship in the Port of Los Angeles on Friday, a fire spokeswoman said. There were three fatalities and seven other people injured, Fire Department spokeswoman Melissa Kelley said. No passengers were involved, she said. Two of the injured were ship's physicians who had gone to aid the others. Two of the injured were being taken to hospitals. The other five were "walking," she said. The incident aboard Royal Caribbean's Monarch of the Seas was reported at 9:15 a.m. Crew members were performing...

President takes over in Georgia Mr Zhvania played a prominent role in the Rose Revolution Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has said he is taking charge of the government following the death of his prime minister on Thursday. Zurab Zhvania, 41, was found dead in an apartment in Tbilisi, apparently poisoned by gas from a faulty heater. Officials say security guards found his body after breaking into a flat owned by friends early on Thursday. Mr Saakashvili told a crowd in Tbilisi that he was "taking responsibility for leading the executive". "I am ordering the government to return to work," he...

LONDON, Dec. 3 - The BBC, Britain's public service broadcaster, acknowledged Friday that it had been tricked into broadcasting an interview with a man pretending to be a spokesman for Dow Chemical, who claimed that the company had taken the blame for the disaster in Bhopal, India, in 1984. The hoax, contradicting Dow Chemical's rejection of any responsibility, came on the 20th anniversary of the catastrophe, when waves of lethal gas escaped from a chemical plant in Bhopal, in central India, killing more than 3,500 people and injuring thousands more. At the time, the plant was owned by the Union...

COLCHESTER, Conn. -- A church in Colchester was leveled by an explosion Friday morning. St. Mary's Ukrainian Church on Route 16, also known as Linwood Ave., was flattened by the explosion just before 7 a.m., according to state police. State police spokesman, Sgt. J. Paul Vance, said the area had been cordoned off and the highway was shut down in both directions. Vance said there was no initial report of injuries and there was no immediate indication of what caused the explosion. The state fire marshal was called to the scene as well utility company crews.