Evacuation orders issued for 40,000 people in California over explosion threat
Source: ABC News
In what is being called an "unprecedented" situation, tens of thousands of people in Southern California were told to leave their homes Friday, with officials issuing a dire warning that a chemical tank at an aerospace facility is in "crisis" and will either fail or explode.
Firefighters initially responded to a leak at the GKN Aerospace manufacturing company in Garden Grove on Thursday, for vapor releasing from a 34,000-gallon tank containing methyl methacrylate, which is used in plastic manufacturing, according to the Orange County Fire Authority.
On Friday, the situation in the city, about 30 miles south of Los Angeles, had grown more dire, with officials warning that, though there was no active gas leak or plume, the tank was "actively in crisis" and unable to be secured.
40,000 under evacuation orders
"There are literally two options left remaining: one, the tank fails and spills a total of about 6- to 7,000 gallons of very bad chemicals into the parking lot in that area. Or two, the tank goes into a thermal runaway and blows up, affecting the tanks that are around them that have fuel or the chemicals in them as well," Orange County Fire Authority Division Chief Craig Covey said in a video update Friday.
Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/weather-news/articles/evacuation-orders-issued-for-40000-people-in-california-over-explosion-threat-031625380.html
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