Explosion in Footscray after trucks collide (large explosion, Melbourne, Australia)

news.com.au ^ | 29th December 2015

[naturalman1975]

A MAN is dead and several people have been injured in a multi-vehicle crash and explosion in Footscray.

Police say a truck and several cars collided before an explosion went off at the corner of Barkly and Gordon streets in Footscray.

Two sets of powerlines are down and windows were blown out in nearby homes.

The explosion spread debris over an area of about 100 metres along Barkly St east of Gordon St.

Much of the debris is believed to have come from the truck. Some of the items include gas bottles and a sink

Local residents say the impact of the smash, which happened at about 11.30am, was extreme.

[naturalman1975]

Hopefully, this is a terrible accident - and if so, one death is very lucky. The scenes we are seeing on the news here show a very significant explosion. While this article says that the explosion happened after the crash of two trucks, television news is saying at this stage that it looks like a truck may have exploded triggering the collision.

The news also says police have ruled out a bomb... honestly at this stage, I'm not sure how they can have ruled out anything (it's been a little under four hours since the incident). I hope they are right.

Probably a lot of photos online, but I no longer tend to share images because I can't work out the copyright issues that Freerepublic has to deal with.

[Lurker]

Prayers up for the injured.

L

[MtnClimber]

Do they have any information about how the explosion happened? A 100m debris field is pretty large.

[umgud]

I see ya’all had a train wreck with hydrochloric acid tank cars.

[naturalman1975]

I think it’s too early to say much. From the images, it looks like one of the trucks was carrying gas cylinders. Whether it was only one or two (like with oxy equipment) or more than that, it’s not that clear.

[naturalman1975]

Sulfuric acid, but that does look like it was ‘just’ a train derailment.

[doorgunner69]

Don't your truckers have to have signs on the trucks when carrying hazardous cargo like gas and chemicals? Must be some evidence lying around what was on board.

[naturalman1975]

Yes, they do have signs like those but whether they are always accurate is another question. Not everybody follows the rules.

[heartwood]

My daughter is staying in a nearby Melbourne suburb - hope she doesn’t work anywhere near Footscray.

[doorgunner69]

If a trucking outfit was playing fast and loose with the rules, hope they get busted hard and expensively for causing this sort of damage to a community.

What I understand of hazardous cargo here, the DOT does not allow them to pass through a lot of areas for just this reason.

[Daniel Ramsey]

There was another recent car and truck accident, a large milk truck exploded. Before that a milk truck overturned not too far away from me here south of Adelaide.

[mitch5501]

There’s an Adelaide in Alaska?

[Daniel Ramsey]

I left icebox Alaska dec 2nd, been in Christies Beach South Australia, about 25 miles south of Adelaide.

Escaped from America when nobody was looking.

[mitch5501]

A-ha! Well welcome to Oz! You must feel like you've jumped out of the icebox and into the frying pan with all this heat.

I'm about that distance north of Adelaide (near Gawler)

ping to another South Aussie

[Daniel Ramsey]

Its not that bad, rather the dry heat here in SA than the horrible mugginess of Hawaii. I had to fly there from Anchorage. Worse was the open air airport facility, i doubt i could get used to Hawaii.

So many impatient drivers, i think its due to being speed repressed and knowing that their speed is being recorded almost everywhere.