Two workers were injured and at least three vehicles were gutted in a major fire that broke out at Chandigarh distilleries and bottling plant in Banur on Monday. Fire tenders from Mohali, Rajpura, Dera Bassi, Mandi Gobindgarh and Chandigarh took nearly three hours to control the blaze.

The fire started with a blast while spirit was being siphoned into a tanker on the factory premises at around 3.15pm. Within seconds, the fire engulfed two other tankers and a truck holding liquor. The blaze also engulfed an office in the nearby building and a chemical lab.

Sources said around 150 workers were on duty at the time of the incident, who got frightened and some even jumped from the first floor of the building to save their lives.

Reports said supervisor Karamchand of Shakti Nagar in Dera Bassi, who was standing on the tanker to supervise siphoning of spirit, suffered severe burns. A worker Golu fractured his leg as he jumped from the first floor.

HOUSTON - An accident involving an overturned tanker truck caused the total closure of Interstate 10 east of Houston on Wednesday morning.

The crash could leave the interstate shut down in both directions for a couple days. The Chambers County Sheriff’s Office says the accident could be cleaned up sometime between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. Wednesday.

Authorities in Jefferson County say the truck wrecked at mile marker 833 between Winnie and FM 365, about 60 miles east of Houston. It was first reported around 7 a.m.

Hazmat was called in after the tanker spilled ethanol all over the roadway. Residents within a two mile radius were asked to evacuate or shelter-in-place along with a nearby high school.

WACO (April 18, 2012)—Two coeds who were working with chemicals including a mixture of ethanol and food dye passed out Wednesday afternoon in a Baylor University chemistry lab, but it’s not clear why.

Initial reports indicated that the two students might have been overcome by fumes, but a university spokeswoman said Wednesday evening there was no evidence of any chemical spill or of any dangerous, toxic or hazardous gasses or fumes in the lab.

The two coeds both regained consciousness and walked away from the room as the students were evacuated from the lab, the university said.

The instructor followed established procedures, opening up a vent hood and shutting off natural gas before leaving the lab, the university said.

No other classrooms were evacuated.

CAMP VICENTE LIM, Laguna, Philippines—A wayward chemical tanker whose driver had fallen asleep sideswiped three vehicles before finally crashing into a row of houses, causing a brief fire in Dasmariñas City in Cavite early Tuesday, police said.
According to Superintendent Ulysses Cruz, Dasmariñas police chief, the driver of the tanker lost control of the vehicle, which sideswiped another truck, a car and a van, all of which were at the Pala-pala junction and all headed towards Tagaytay City, at around 1:30 a.m.
The tanker stopped when it hit three houses on the side of the road. A fire broke out but firefighters were able to put it out after around 30 minutes.
The ten-wheel tanker, which police said belonged to the Absolute Chemicals Inc., carried food-grade alcohol used in the manufacture of liquor.

ABBEVILLE -- Hazmat crews, police and firefighters are working a train derailment right in the city of Abbeville.

There is an evacuation order for a half mile from the where the CSX cars went off the tracks just before 5 a.m. We're told the accident reportedly happened at the intersection of Redd and Haigler Streets. A Command Center has been set up on the 100 block of North Main Street.

The Associated Press is reporting ten homes have been evacuated so far.

Mason Speer, Fire Chief for the City of Abbeville, says there were a number of cars carrying ethanol and some of empty tankers. Right now, there's no word on if any spilled out, but some cars did overturn. Speer says hazmat crews will determine if any ethanol leaked out.

wo crew members were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries after three freight trains collided northeast of Valparaiso, Ind., this afternoon, according to sheriff’s authorities.

About 1:15 p.m. multiple 911 calls were received reporting a train crash at County Road 500 E and County Road 600 North, in a rural area of Porter County northeast of Valparaiso, said Porter County Sheriff’s Dept. Sgt. Larry LaFlower.

On the scene, emergency responders found three freight trains with two crew members aboard each had collided and burst into flames.

A westbound train comprised of two engines and 77 cars that was hauling empty ethanol tankers had been stopped but was rear-ended by another westbound train with two engines and 60 cars, LaFlower said.

“Cars from the first train derailed and the engines and some cars of the second train also derailed,’’ the sergeant said.

About 6,400 gallons of ethyl alcohol spilled from the back of a Heaven Hill Distilleries facility off KY 49, Loretto Road, Saturday afternoon.

Roughly a tanker truck’s worth of 180-proof, potable alcohol, used for blending at Heaven Hill, poured into a nearby creek and lake as firefighters, state environmental regulators and the Nelson County Emergency Management Agency were called to the scene.

The accident occurred as a tanker truck was transferring the alcohol into a tank behind the distillery’s main bottling building.

ROCKLAND, Maine — When the Rockland Fire Department learned at about 6 a.m. Sunday that there was a fire in the alcohol room at a major carrageenan processing plant at the harbor, officials feared the worst.

Four fire engines with about a dozen firefighters and three ambulances raced to the FMC BioPolymer manufacturing facility on Crockett’s Point.
Nearby Rockport sent two engines and about 10 firefighters, according to Assistant Chief Ken Elwell of the Rockland Fire Department.

But when they got into the building, they found that the company’s sprinkler system had activated, tamping down the fire and minimizing damage.

“It certainly had the potential to be catastrophic, because we were dealing with alcohol,” Elwell said. “Obviously, when we get into a building like that, we don’t know what we have until we get down in there.”

A man was injured Tuesday when a barrel he was working on exploded in the 2200 Wickham Business Park in Melbourne.

The man had minor burns around his eyes and face and was taken to a hospital, said assistant chief Joe Sunday of the Melbourne Fire Department.

The explosion was heard more than a mile away at a Melbourne fire station on Croton Road, Sunday said.

Using a circular saw, the man was cutting a 55-gallon steel drum to make a fire pit when a spark may have ignited denatured ethanol inside the barrel, according to Sunday.

PASCO -- HAZMAT is called out this morning after two trains collide near the Port of Pasco. 2,000 gallons of ethanol leaked out.

One train was loose on the tracks after a cable snapped. It crashed into an idle train, puncturing a car filled with 30,000 gallons of ethanol.
Dozens of emergency vehicles responded by using dams and foam to keep the leak for reaching the river. And the smell of gasoline was everywhere.

As Lincolnshire police find equipment used for distilling alcohol at the site of an explosion in Boston in which five people were killed, Channel 4 News asks how widespread such practices are.

Reports had been circulating that Wednesday's explosion in the Broadfield Lane industrial estate unit was caused by an illegal vodka distillery. Lincolnshire Police Supt Keith Owen said initial searches revealed evidence that supports the rumours.

"What I can confirm is that we have found chemicals on the premises which tend to indicate either the manufacture or production of alcohol," he said.

The explosion caused a fireball that left five people dead and another hospitalised. Fire officials described it as "so intense" that people could hear it five miles away.

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Firefighters are battling a huge chemical fire on the west side of St. Louis, which has forced the evacuation of several nearby homes and the hospitalization of three firefighters.

Reports are that several tanks of acetone and ethanol caught fire around 2:30 this morning at the Chemisphere Corp. in the 2100 block of Cliffton Avenue. The first 911 call came in at 2:33 with reports of flames at the site.

St. Louis Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson says three firefighters have been taken to the hospital following an explosion but that they are in stable condition.

The tanker truck crash that killed a driver and knocked out power to 81 customers today could have been even worse, according to fire officials.

The deadly crash took place at the intersection of 31-A and Mathes Road in the town of Barre, just after 4 a.m. Neighbors say they lost power in their homes and shortly after, heard three loud explosions.

Barre Fire Chief Jesse Babcock says an infamously dangerous bend in the road caused the driver to plow into a patch of trees and hit a utility pole. Due to the truck containing eight-thousand gallons of ethanol, firefighters had to use foam to contain the fire.

(ARCADIA, Ohio) -- A freight train carrying ethanol derailed near Arcadia, Ohio, early Sunday morning, causing more than a dozen tankers to catch fire and forcing nearby residents to evacuate their homes.

A fireball could be seen from up to 15 miles away. There were no immediate reports of injures.

Hancock County Sheriff Michael Heldman had to tell nearby residents to leave.

“We've evacuated several homes in the one-mile-square area,” Heldman said. “We're asking everybody to stay away from that area.”

FOUR fire crews spent nearly two hours clearing up a chemical spill at Tilbury Docks this afternoon (Tuesday).

Crews from Grays and Orsett were called at 3.11pm after a valve on a tank broke and ethanol, a volatile and flammable liquid, started to leak.

A spokesman for Essex Fire and Rescue described the ethanol “pouring” from the container which can hold up to 33,000 litres of the liquid.

The firefighters laid down a blanket of foam to prevent risk of ignition and contain the spillage while the Port of London Authority brought a new container to put the remainder of the liquid into.

Salt River Fire Paramedics rushed on to campus after two students in the Natural Science building suffered from breathing complications while working with pure Ethanol on Tuesday Sept. 21.
The three-hour lab, taught by Professor Anne Healy, had been using pure Ethanol, also known as ethyl alcohol or drinking alcohol, when the two girls began to feel nauseous.  Classmate, Diane Hannan, said, "they turned red and blush and couldn't breathe."
arly speculation, from administration, over the cause of the incident was possible equipment failure in the air vents.  However, according to Healy an inspection took place after the students were sent home, and found no problems or malfunctions.  
It is still unclear what caused the sudden complications but Healy believes it was a mixture of the heat and chemicals in the air.  According to Healy, the lab gets warm due to the use of sterilizers in order to inoculate needles and other supplies the lab uses.
    
"I think (it's) just a combination of a lot of smelly chemicals and it gets warm in there," said Healy.  "Some people just find it really irritating and unpleasant.  So I think that's all it really was… weird chemical odors."
  
 The two girls began to feel better after paramedics treated them with oxygen to breathe.  Healy ran into one of the students some time later and said she had been feeling a lot better since the incident.
 

Portions of U.S. 20 were closed for approximately 12 hours after a truck carrying ethanol rolled over east of the Stephenson County Visitors Center shortly after 3 a.m. Friday.

German Valley Fire Department Captain Randy Miller said the one-vehicle accident did not result in any serious injuries.

However, concerns linked to an ethanol leak drew the attention of numerous local agencies and disrupted traffic throughout the morning and early afternoon.

The Stephenson County Sheriff’s Office first received a call about the incident at 3:08 a.m. After it became clear the truck was carrying ethanol, members of the Stephenson County Hazardous Materials (HAZMAT) team were dispatched to the scene.

Local HAZMAT coordinator Scott Townsend said members of the HAZMAT team discovered minimal leaking when they arrived at the crash.

“Once we saw no breach in the tanker and established that there was very little leaking, we turned the scene back over to the German Valley Fire District,” Townsend said.

BRUSH - A tanker truck carrying ethanol spilled part of its load Tuesday evening, causing Interstate 76 to be shutdown for hours.
According to Colorado State Patrol the road re-opened early Wednesday morning.
State Patrol says the driver of the tanker was exiting the highway near milepost 90 and lost control of the tanker truck which ended up on its side.
Both directions of I-76 were closed from milepost 89 to 92 while HazMat teams worked on containing and clearing the spill.
The driver was transported to Colorado Plains Medical Center with minor injuries.
CSP is investigating the crash and charges are pending.

MAMMOTH SPRING, AR (KAIT) --What could have been a huge, possibly fatal fire or an enormous bio-disaster was prevented this morning just outside Mammoth Spring.
A tanker truck carrying 75 hundred gallons of ethanol ran off Highway 63 South, rolled on its side and began leaking.