It could have been mistaken for end of term celebrations. In fact, the loud noise which stopped passers-by outside the University’s research lab on Mansfield Road was caused by a chemical explosion.
Two students were sent to hospital after the blast, which drew onlookers and fire-fighters to the scene in minutes. Having closed Mansfield Road at approximately 3.30pm, a police blockade was erected to deter curious onlookers.
Although a spokesperson for Thames Valley Police said they “were aware of the incident,” the precinct will not begin an investigation into the matter.
The Chemistry Department are withholding further details about the explosion, including the state of the injured students, until they conclude their own investigation.
A spokesperson for the University was said: “A minor explosion occurred at a University chemistry building on Friday afternoon but was contained by a safety cabinet. Two people were injured and were taken to hospital. The fire brigade were called but the building was reoccupied and there was no risk to the public and no indication of criminal activity.”

SEATTLE -- Hazmat crews responded to a report of a chemical odor at a building on the campus of the University of Washington on Friday.
An alert e-mailed to students, staff and faculty said, "Chemical Spill at Parrington Hall. Evacuation in progress. Avoid the area until further notice."
The building, Parrington Hall, houses the university's Graduate School of Public Affairs, according to the UW's website.
The Fire Department later told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News that it was nothing dangerous.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- A hazardous material scare at an O.H.S.U. research lab sent two lab workers and two security officers to the emergency room with breathing problems.
Portland Fire Department hazardous materials crews spent almost six hours on the scene Thursday night.
Someone on the fourth floor of the Medical Research Building spilled about three tablespoons of acrolein-a, which gives off a strong odor, investigators said.
The chemical can also irritate the eyes, nose and lungs.
Crews evacuated the entire research building, which remained closed until Friday morning.

SANPETE COUNTY, Utah (ABC 4 News) - Four students were taken to the hospital after a Hazmat situation at Snow College.

Police in Sanpete County say the students were in the Science Building when they passed out.

Hazmat crews quarantined the other students and teachers in the building to be checked out.

Investigators are now looking into possible carbon monoxide poisoning.

CONCORDIA Lutheran College students were given a brief reprieve from classes this morning when a chemical spill caused a mass evacuation.
 

An amount of sodium was spilt in a "prep room" near the science laboratories just after 11am, forcing the school to initiate its evacuation procedures.


The highly reactive metal can explode when combined with water or moisture. 

HUNTSVILLE, TX (KTRK) -- Officials at Sam Houston State University evacuated the chemistry and forensic science building due to a chemical spill in the building.

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A spokesperson for the university said that shortly before 8am Tuesday a bottle of bromine was knocked over as students were preparing to do a lab in the building. The bromine is in liquid form, but turns to gas rather quickly.
The building's safety officer was notified and they went through standard procedure and evacuated the building.
Huntsville Fire Department's Hazmat team cleaned up the spill and will continue to monitor the air.

WESTWOOD - A hazardous materials team was sent Thursday to UCLA, where a spill of a cleaning agent inside a building left three people feeling ill.
The Los Angeles Fire Department responded at 2:31 p.m. to a report of an "unknown chemical spill" in the Biomedical Sciences Research Building, city fire spokesman Devin Gales said.
Three facilities workers who reported feeling nauseous were treated at the scene, according to UCLA officials, and about 200 people were safely evacuated from the building.
South Charles E. Young Drive was closed between Tiverton Drive and Westholme Avenue.
The spilled cleaning agent, identified as chlorine dioxide, was contained by 3:30 p.m., officials said.

MYSORE: She had a zeal to teach and learn. But she never imagined that her dedication to work will cost her life. On January 6, 38-year-old Nilamma, a bio-technology teacher at JSS PG centre succumbed to burns she sustained last month during a practical session at the laboratory.

Nilamma was re-arranging chemicals used in the experiment back into the cupboard when the accident took place. A bottle of highly combustible chemical slipped out of her hand to fall on the burner lit by her to boil chemicals used in the experiment. Fire spread and Nilamma's saree caught fire before causing severe burn injuries. She was immediately shifted to Mission Hospital where her husband Manjunath himself is a doctor. Later when Manjunath realized that his wife is critical, he shifted her to Bangalores St Johns hospital, where she breathed her last on January 6.

An academically competent Nilamma, who was trained and worked in institutes like CFTRI and DFRL before joining as a lecturer at JSS PG centre, however never knew that her death will go down as a record into the annals of academic history. It is said that Nilamma is probably the second teacher in the country to die of burns while conducting a practical class.

Georgia Southern University is investigating an envelope an employee received this morning that contained a suspicious white powder.

University police responded at 8:53 a.m.

The envelope was received at Lewis Hall which is an administrative building that houses the University's Office of Admissions.

HazMat teams were called to the university as a precaution and are trying to identify the substance.  Lewis Hall has also been quarantined.

In the last issue of every year, Organic Process Research & Development puts together a “Safety Special Section.”

Seattle Fire has finished with a hazmat incident at the University of Washington's Henderson Hall, the Applied Physics Lab.
Sue Stangl with the Seattle Fire Department said the building was evacuated.
The problem substance is flourine gas. The gas, which is toxic, was stopped from spreading.
Seattle Fire said 3 to 4 cubic centimeters of the gas was released on the first floor lab. A lab technician said he heard a hiss, turned off the valve and left to call 9-1-1.
Lt. Stangl said the hazmat team members suited up in what is called "level A" protection and entered the lab where the gas leaked to make sure the nozzle is closed.
When haz mat crews made it into the lab, they confirmed the nozzle was closed. The amount of flourine was very minimal, according to Stangl.
The incident began at about 4:30 p.m. Friday.

LA CROSSE, Wisconsin (WXOW) - UPDATE:  A magnesium fire in a kiln inside Cowley Hall on the UW-L campus has forced students and faculty from the building.

According to a La Crosse Fire Department spokesperson, there is no danger to anyone or the building.  The department plans to let the small amount of magnesium burn itself out. There was a concern over possible chemical reactions if water or other fire suppression chemicals were used.  Firefighters wearing hazmat gear as a precaution are in the building monitoring the situation.    

The spokesperson was not sure how many people were in the building when the fire started around 4pm. 

There are no reports of any injuries.

Kearney Police are investigating the mysterious death of a University of Nebraska Kearney Student after a dangerous chemical is found in his apartment.

Sunday police responded to a call at an apartment complex on 23rd Street in Kearney.

21 year old Khoa Tam Vu was found in his bedroom by his roommate Sunday afternoon.

During the investigation, the Buffalo County hazmat team was called to secure a suspected dangerous chemical found in the apartment.

Police said they're working with the University of Nebraska Kearney chemistry department to determine what the chemical was.

Two Bridgewater State University employees were taken to the hospital after they were sickened by an unknown chemical Thursday.

At 11:41 a.m. the Bridgewater fire department was called to Bridgewater State University and began a tier 1 haz-mat response-- the least serious response level.

Two food service employees were working near a dishwasher and food disposal area in a kitchen in the east campus commons, when they became ill.

"They were nauseous, they were dizzy, they were vomiting," said Eva Gaffney, Director of the Office of Institutional Communications at BSU. "They were treated by the town of Bridgewater's ambulance crews and subsequently sent to Brockton Hospital for further treatment and evaluation."

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) – Columbia firefighters are on the scene of chemical spill at the University of South Carolina's Graduate Science Research Center on Sumter Street.

Fire Chief Aubrey Jenkins said a student in one of the labs knocked over and broke a container of a chemical called Tetrahydfuran that was being using for an experiment. Jenkins said Tetrahydfuran can be flammable and cause respiratory problems, and is known to evaporate quickly once exposed to air.

There were about three people inside the fifth-floor laboratory when the spill occurred, and about 15 to 20 people were evacuated from the building. Jenkins said everyone was able to make it out of the building okay.

A hazardous materials team has entered the building and is ventilating the facility. There were no reports of damage to the building.

Huntsville, AL-- A chemical burn is responsible for a fire that evacuated the science building at Alabama A&M late Monday.  The call came in around 4:00 from the Robert A. Carter Science Hall.
Firefighters found the third and fourth floors filled with smoke.  The traced the fire to room 305 and used an extinguisher to put out the flames.
No one was hurt and everyone was evacuated from the building.  Once the situation was under control, students were allowed back in the lobby due to the cold weather.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- Crews were called in Monday morning to cleanup a hazardous situation at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Fayetteville.
Crews at the site said workers who were renovating the building found some kind of acid that special response teams were called to collect.
No one has been injured at this time, officials said.

The main science building on the KU campus is re-opened after a possible chemical spill.

People were told to leave Malott Hall around 4:30p.m. Monday after someone reported a chemical smell in a fifth floor lab.

Two people complained of headaches, one of which were treated at the scene, and the other was treated and taken to a Lawrence Hospital.

HazMat teams worked to make sure the building was safe, as well as other buildings.

Jill Jess/University of Kansas says, "I don't believe it's in any danger of being transferred to any of the other buildings they are of course ensuring that's the case if there is any danger, they will make sure those people are evacuated as well."

Malott Hall reopened around 7:30p.m., but the fifth-floor chemical remains closed while officials investigated the source of the smell.

A minor explosion in a glass vial at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Engineering Center at approximately 2:45 p.m. today caused the evacuation of the south side of the building that houses the chemical engineering department. One minor injury was reported.

The explosion occurred during an experiment being conducted by a chemical engineering graduate student. The student sustained a minor cut on the chin from the exploding glass vial and was treated and released at Wardenburg Health Center on the CU-Boulder campus.

The student was managing a chemical reaction between three chemicals: tripropargylamine, tetraethylene glycol diazide, and copper (II) disoprophyl salicylate.

No other students were in the room at the time of the explosion and there was no structural damage to the laboratory.

The Boulder Fire Department and CU Police responded to the scene. Hazmat crews conducted a walk-through of the area to make sure there was no further danger.

As of 4:50 p.m., all of the building had reopened except for the corridor where the lab is located.

NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) - Four people were arrested in connection with the discovery of suspected bottle bombs in the backyard of an apartment complex in the 1500 block of 42nd Street near Old Dominion University in Norfolk.

Leah Holloway, an ODU student living next door to the apartment complex where the four suspects live said she was the one who called 911.

"They were mixing bleach, Drano, and gasoline and trying to light it on fire. They were mixing chemicals for two hours. They actually left and came back to get more chemicals because the first set of chemicals did not work," Holloway said.

Fire officials arrived on scene just after 4 p.m. to find what they said appeared to be bottle bombs in the back of  the apartment complex.

The apartment building and a house next door were evacuated and part of Powhatan Avenue was blocked.

The bomb squad brought in a robot which fired shots at the bottles to render them safe and then investigators began examining the evidence to determine exactly what types of chemicals were used. 

(Reuters) - A professor at a chemistry college in eastern France was fined 8,000 euros and given a suspended jail sentence on Thursday for causing a lab explosion that killed a colleague and gravely injured a student.

The accident occurred in 2006 when professor Alain Louati went out for lunch and an open bottle of highly inflammable ethylene triggered an explosion that tore through his laboratory in the city of Mulhouse, near the German border.

The blast, which blew out windows and ceilings and blackened walls, killed a professor in a room above the lab and injured a high-school student in an adjacent room. The young woman suffered severe fractures to the head and body, was temporarily in a coma and was left handicapped.

A court in Mulhouse found Louati, 62, guilty of involuntary homicide and causing injury by negligence and gave him a suspended 18-month prison sentence.

At his trial in September, Louati was accused of using substandard rubber tubes and of leaving the flask of ethylene open. Louati denied responsibility for the blast, saying he had closed the bottle and someone must have entered the lab and reopened it.

Back in March, the The California Division of Occupational Safety & Health (Cal/OSHA) levied $67,720 in fines against the the University of California, Los Angeles, Chemistry & Biochemistry Department for laboratory health and safety violations identified during inspections last fall. UCLA appealed the citations. Cal/OSHA and the university reached an agreement on the citations at the end of September, consolidating some of the citations and reducing the fines to $36,690.

Most of the agreement involves decreasing the fines by increasing the “good faith” component of the penalty calculation, but there are also two other things of interest: One is what happened regarding the the department’s chemical hygiene officer (CHO), who Cal/OSHA called unqualified. The second is is that a “repeat” citation for lack of training was reduced to “serious.” Cal/OSHA previously cited UCLA for lack of training in the death of Sheri Sangji.

In assessing penalties, Cal/OSHA can consider a number of factors: the extent of the problem; the likelihood of injury, illness, or disease; the size of the employer; any history of previous violations; and the “good faith” of the employer. According to the regulation, good faith “is based upon the quality and extent of the safety program the employer has in effect and operating. It includes the employer’s awareness of CAL/OSHA, and any indications of the employer’s desire to comply with the Act, by specific displays of accomplishments.”

The Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department initially responded to a hazmat spill at 4:29 on the campus of the Medical College of Wisconsin Loading Dock. The Wauwatosa Fire Department Hazmat Unit responded, and determined a 300 gallon container of formaldehyde ruptured.

A research lab at North Dakota State University has been temporarily closed after a chemical scare.

Students and staff were evacuated Friday afternoon from the Research II building at the school's Center for Nanoscience and Engineering. University administrator Philip Boudjouk told the Fargo Forum that work on high-capacity batteries led to a potentially dangerous chemical reaction.

Boudjouk says the chemical compound was contained to a small container. No injuries were reported.

The research area has been closed for cleaning.

Wednesday afternoon brought a series of mishaps and mayhem to the University of Cincinnati Main Mampus and surrounding area.
At approximately noon, an explosion in an Engineering Research Center laboratory led to the evacuation of ERC, Rhodes and Baldwin halls.
The explosion was caused by a graduate student working inside a chemical fume safety cabinet, said Jeff Corcoran, UC Police Division assistant chief.
"They had an unexpected reaction with the chemicals," Corcoran said. "The glass in the fume hood broke when the chemicals reacted."
The student sustained minor injuries from the shattered glass and was transported to University Hospital.
"The fire department and hazardous material team went in," Corcoran said. "They found no chemicals in the air, although there is obviously some spilled material."
After the explosion, the student pushed a button next to the fume hood to trigger ERC's emergency ventilation system. The system also triggers the building's fire alarms, which led to the precautionary evacuation.
At approximately 1:30 p.m., UC's environmental health and safety finished surveying the building, and it was deemed safe for re-entry.
Cincinnati Fire Department‘s Ladder 20 left the scene on campus in response to a house fire on the 3400 block of Brookline Avenue at 1:15 p.m.
"When the company showed up on the scene, there was heavy fire coming out of the back of the building," said CFD district chief Ronald Dexter. "It appears to have started between the second and third floor in the floor space, went up the walls and into the attic."
The fire was originally a two-fire alarm, but the incident officer reduced the alarm due to the manpower, size of the building and amount of smoke, Dexter said.

CINCINNATI - Operations have returned to normal after a chemical leak forced an evacuation at the University of Cincinnati on Wednesday.

 

The incident happened in the Engineering Research Center on Woodside Drive around noon.

One student was treated for cuts from broken glass.

Officials have not said what kind of chemicals were invovled.

Students and faculty were allowed to return to the building around 2 p.m., according to University of Cincinnati police.

VICTORVILLE • Authorities evacuated some areas of Victor Valley College Monday morning after leaking gas from the welding class was discovered, San Bernardino County Fire officials said.

Several engines and a hazardous materials unit were called out at about 10:30 a.m., Capt. Tracy Carlton said.

The fire department stood by as the leaking acetylene cylinder was allowed to vent off, Carlton said. Depending on what a chemical may be, the best procedure may be to allow the chemical to vent safely into the atmosphere while monitoring it and keeping everyone else away from the location.

No one was hurt in the incident and the normal class schedule resumed after about two hours, officials said.

KOLKATA: A fire raged through the hallowed corridors of Presidency University's Derozio Building before dawn on Friday, leaving in its wake gutted laboratories in the chemistry and biochemistry departments, heaps of ash and rubble that once documented years of toil by our brightest brains and an indelible scar on the city's academic face that has symbolized excellence for 193 years.

There were no deaths or injuries in the blaze that was detected at 4am by guards at the gate, thanks to the fact that the building was locked and there was nobody inside.

The flames, believed to have been sparked by a short circuit from a refrigerator in the organic chemistry laboratory on the third floor, singed all its three sections before leaping up vertically and destroying three lecture theatres on the fourth floor. As the tandava of destruction raged above, the heat generated partially damaged the physical and inorganic laboratories on the second floor.

Instruments and chemicals worth lakhs of rupees were destroyed along with research material and thesis papers ready for submission by more than a dozen scholars working on various projects. But firefighters who doused the blaze said the damage could have been worse because the laboratories were stocked with combustible material.The building has been closed down by the KMC.

Hazmat crews are investigating a possible ammonia leak at Kansas University's Malott Hall. The building was evacuated shortly after the report was made at about 2:20 p.m.

According to the reporting party, the spill was made in a classroom in the seven-story building and could be smelled outside the building.

The physics and chemistry departments are housed at Malott Hall, 1251 Wescoe Hall Drive.

The Chevron Science Center on the University of Pittsburgh's campus has been deemed safe after fears of a chemical leak prompted an evacuation this morning.

Hazmat crews were called after someone inside the building believed there was a hydrogen sulfate leak. A university spokesman said someone smelled sulfur on the ninth floor and pulled the fire alarm, prompting the evacuation.

No one was hurt, and environmental safety workers from the university gave the building an all-clear, finding no chemical leak.

The Materials Research Laboratory building at Penn State University Park was evacuated late this morning after a small chemical explosion inside, university spokeswoman Lisa Powers confirmed.

It happened about 11:30 a.m. in a laboratory room, Powers wrote in an e-mail message. She indicated that no one was in the lab at the time and that no one was hurt. The building is located on Hastings Road just east of University Drive.

No fire was reported, either, and clean-up has begun, Powers wrote. She added that damages inside the lab are considered minor.

A Hazmat team and other emergency responders arrived at the scene, and Hastings Road was closed off while the affected lab was evaluated, Powers reported.

She noted that two bottles of chemicals were involved in the explosion: one a mixture of nitric and sulfuric acids, the other a mixture of ethylene glycol and ammonium chloride.

(NECN/WJLA) - A Georgetown University dorm was evacuated for hours Saturday after a chemical lab was discovered. Authorities say they arrested two students and a visitor in connection with the suspected drug lab.

The three men face charges of possession of drug paraphernalia.

Police say it all started early Saturday morning when they got a call about a foul odor at the Harbin Hall dorm. 

Initially they thought the lab was for making meth. Later, they said it was for making a hallucinogenic drug known as "DMT," an illegal substance.

"Our Hazmat teams were able get in, evaluate the situation," said Pete Piringer of DC Fire & EMS. "It was potentially very explosive. The Metropolitan Police brought in their EOD or explosive experts as well. We stabilized it somewhat. Again, it was made safe for explosive folks to come in.  Again, the dangers are explosives and inhalation." 

When I worked as a reporter in the Midwest, there was routine news about methamphetamine lab busts -- usually in isolated rural areas lacking neighbors who might smell or suspect something.

Then early Saturday morning, this news out of Georgetown University in the heart of Washington: Police discovered a suspected meth lab inside a freshman residence hall and evacuated the building. Later in the afternoon, officials said the drug being produced in the dorm was actually Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a hallucinogen.

My colleague Dan de Vise was on campus this morning and talked with a few of the 400 students who were forced to leave their warm beds in Harbin Hall early on a chilly fall morning. You can read his reporting, here.

Drug labs can be highly dangerous places, as the combination of chemicals used can lead to explosions -- which is why police at Georgetown say they immediately evacuated the dorm. And Georgetown isn't the first university to find a drug-making laboratory on or near campus.

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―

A 25-year-old man was treated for minor injuries after a small chemical explosion inside of a building in Oakland.

According to emergency officials, it happened around 12:30 p.m. on the fourth floor of the Mellon Institute at the corner of Fifth and Bellefield Avenues.

There is no word yet on what caused the small amount of chemical to explode.

The man was treated at the scene for some minor injuries.

An MSU student had a negative reaction to chemicals he had been working with Monday evening while in the Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building, MSU police Sgt. Florene McGlothian-Taylor said.

The student, a 23-year-old male, called the complainant, a 45-year-old female MSU employee, after reacting to the chemicals, McGlothian-Taylor said.

The Office of Radiation, Chemical and Biological Safety, East Lansing Fire Department and the East Lansing Police Department all responded to the call.

The exposure was at a non-lethal level, and the student was taken to Lansing’s Sparrow Hospital.

A student in More Hall accidentally caused a fire while sterilizing his lab equipment with ethanol during a chemistry experiment. While the student was trying to stop the fire, some of the ethanol fell to the floor and caused a small fire in the cabinetry below the countertops. Seattle Fire Department (SFD) firefighters were called to the scene and replacement costs are estimated at about $1,000.

A fire in a laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was reported late Sunday night, authorities said.

The fire, on the fourth floor of Kenan Labs, 125 South Road, was extinguished about 30 minutes after the 10:33 p.m. alarm first alerted officials to the fire.

Crews from Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Durham and New Hope fire departments responded to the fire.

UNC Health and Safety and the professor who supervises the lab were contacted for information about chemicals that were inside the room. UNC Fire Marshal Billy Mitchell said the chemicals were organic and caused no threat to fire crews.

The scene was turned over to the university for clean up and investigation of the cause of the fire.

An Army bomb disposal unit today carried out a controlled explosion on an unstable chemical at a laboratory in the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin.

Authorities at the college on St Stephen's Green contacted the emergency services shortly before 12.30pm after an internal audit of the lab found the chemical had degraded to a dangerous state.

Following an examination of the chemical by the bomb disposal team, the chemical was deemed unsafe to transport and was subsequently made safe through a controlled explosion on nearby waste ground.

The offending material is understood to have been 30g of picric acid, a potentially explosive substance which is commonly used by laboratories in the analysis of metals and ores.

When the substance goes beyond a certain timeframe, it can become dangerous to transport.

The University of Minnesota evacuated a building Wednesday evening after a chemical spill sent two students to the hospital for observation.

University officials hoped to reopen the Phillips Wangensteen Building on Thursday once a hazardous material response team had cleaned up the spill.

Two students working with the chemical pyridine in a seventh-floor lab reported the spill about 6 p.m. Wednesday, Minneapolis Fire Battalion Chief Mike Carswell said. The students apparently were moving the toxic, highly flammable chemical when 2 to 4 liters spilled in the doorway, spreading into the lab and the hall.

If the liquid had spilled only in the lab, the fumes would have been vented outside, said Neil Carlson, university health and safety industrial hygienist. But because the spill entered the hall, emergency crews were concerned it could be carried to the rest of the building, prompting them to immediately evacuate the building's sixth, seventh and eighth floors. The rest of the building, which contains classrooms and labs, was evacuated as hazardous material crews came to clean up the spill.

The students, who suffered no apparent injuries, immediately covered the spill with dry material to contain it and the vapors, Carswell said. As a precaution, the students were taken to a decontamination van, where they showered. They were later hospitalized for observation.

Pyridine can irritate skin and the vapors can cause nausea and headaches, Carlson said.

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.
 

Students with midday classes in Mason Laboratory on Wednesday enjoyed listening to lecture outdoors but also had their ears filled with the drone of the alarm that went off in response to a small fire.

The fire broke out this afternoon in a furnace that had been left on in associate research scientist Sungchul Lee's lab. The furnace burnt a hole, about 4 inches in diameter, in a wooden table, but no one was injured, and no experiment was taking place when the fire started, according to William Cross, a University fire inspector.

The fire occurred during a weekly meeting of chemical engineering graduate students. When one of the students entered Room 220, he smelled smoke and pulled the fire alarm, said Gary Haller, a professor in chemical engineering. The alarm went off at 12:12 p.m., and three fire trucks arrived on the scene within minutes.

HICAGO - Chicago Fire Department officials responded to Roosevelt University in the Loop Wednesday afternoon for a hazardous materials incident.

Fire officials also called for an EMS Plan 1, sending five ambulances to the scene at 430 South Michigan.

Officials at the scene say one person was transported in fair condition and two other people in good-to-fair condition to Northwestern Memorial Hospital for exposure to fumes.

All victims were complaining of irritation to the throat and were experiencing headaches.

Fire officials say a chemical spill on the 6th floor triggered the response, police officials said.

Residents in Hand College were jarred Sunday night by the release of a chemical irritant on the third floor of the Tabler Quad dormitory.

Shortly before 7pm, residents began to report feeling sick in Hand College, and began evacuating the building. Early rumors suggested that the cause was pepper spray that someone tried to microwave, but the latest reports suggest that the irritant was perhaps tear gas. Several residents were seen throwing up, according to Hand College resident Mark Ihde, who was on the balcony of his room when the first rumors came in.

“Hazmat was on the scene, and told people they can’t go back in,” he said. “Residents who were exposed were quarantined off behind yellow police tape.”

If reports of tear gas are accurate–police have not yet confirmed the cause of the evacuation–the immediate question would become where this student acquired tear gas. It can be manufactured using simple every day products, but there are no answers at this time as to whether the chemical was in the process of being created, or whether it was made elsewhere and simply released, perhaps accidentally, on campus.

As of 10:00pm, residents in Hand were being allowed to return to their rooms after Hazmat gave the all-clear, though Ihde said that third floor residents were still being kept out until the exact details become clear.

The Harrison Pharmacy School building was evacuated at about 8:45 a.m. because of a corroded canister of hydrogen chloride gas, according to the Auburn Fire Department.

A canister of hydrogen chloride, a potentially deadly gas, was found to be leaking.

“The regulator [on the canister] is stuck,” said Lee Evans, dean of the School of Pharmacy. “They had planned to remove this canister this evening. When the University was notified that we had a canister that could potentially leak, they pulled in the militia.”

All access points to the building were blocked off with yellow caution tape. An AU alert went out at 9:29 a.m. via a phone call and 9:40 a.m. via text message, warning students of a reported hazardous material release and cautioning them to avoid the area.

“This is really being extremely safe,” Evans said. “Essentially, from a safety perspective, [the University] said we need to get it out of here now.”

Safety precautions included members of the Auburn and Opelika HazMat team and Auburn Fire Department.

“They’re in level-A suits in there,” said an Auburn firefighter.

When sealed in one of these suits, the wearer is completely isolated from the outside atmosphere. The suits are composed of up to a dozen protective layers, as well as a sealed hood and respirator mask.

On a scale of one to 10, however, Evans said the event was only about a 0.5.

Lee Lamar, Auburn fire chief, said as far as they know, the canister was found to be leaking this morning. He didn’t know if they were planning to move it or not.

“This wouldn’t be standard protocol for moving it as long as it was in a good state,” Lamar said. He said at 10 a.m. they were looking at one to two more hours of cleanup.

William Ravis, professor in the pharmacy school, said the canister had been “sitting up there for years.” Arrangements were apparently made last night to remove the canister.

Officials are currently setting up a decontamination team.

The fire department will make a formal statement on the situation later in the day.

WESTWOOD , Mass. -- A woman’s suicide led police to search for cyanide at a local train station.

Police say former Northeastern University lab technician Emily Staupe took her own life by ingesting crystallized cyanide.

According to investigators, Staupe, 30, took a train into Boston Saturday and entered a Northeastern lab.

Authorities say she left her car at the Westwood commuter rail station.

The state police bomb squad and a Hazmat team searched the car.

No dangerous materials were located and there reportedly was no threat to commuters.

The Boston Herald reports Staupe had recently been laid off from her job and posted a farewell message to her friends on Facebook Saturday night.

Police say it is still not clear where Staupe obtained the cyanide.

Staupe was found inside her Milford home early Sunday morning.

Police say a plastic bag marked with the word "cyanide" was located near her body.

No other hazardous materials were located inside the home.

Investigators are looking into whether the chemical had been taken from Northeastern's lab.

According to the Boston Herald, one terrorist expert says regardless of where she obtained the chemical, this case has prompted safety fears and proves universities need to increase security to prevent potential public safety risks.

Cape Town - A chemical laboratory at the University of the Cape Town was damaged when a fire broke out on Thursday morning, SABC radio news reported.

Nobody was injured during the blaze at the department of chemical engineering.

Fire and rescue services senior emergency communicator Winston Davids said three fire engines and a specialised vehicle which handles hazardous materials, were sent to deal with the chemicals inside the building.

He said it took more than two hours to extinguish the blaze.

The cause of the fire was being investigated. - Sapa

Emergency crews have been called to the University of Nevada, Reno campus this morning after reports of a possible carbon dioxide leak.

Hazmat crews were called to the Applied Research Facility at around 7:20 a.m., according to scanner traffic. Crews were evacuating people from the building while they work to find the source of the leak.

Texas Tech investigators have linked a Jan. 7 laboratory explosion that severely injured a doctoral candidate to 20 surrounding violations of the university’s safety policy, according to documents released Monday.

University officials ordered the probe after a highly explosive chemical combusted in 29-year-old Preston Brown’s hands, sending him to University Medical Center with three severed fingers and a perforated eye.

In their April report to administrators, investigators concluded the chemistry department had failed to meet some 20 safety standards outlined in the university’s Chemical Hygiene Plan, or lab safety manual.

Only a handful of the these violations played a direct role in the incident, but the breadth and severity of the infractions alarmed Tech’s administrators and prompted a complete overhaul of the university’s safety standards.

Taylor Eighmy, Tech’s vice president for research, said the university has corrected the mistakes at all of Tech’s labs. His office is also forming a permanent safety committee with university-wide oversight.

“A lot has happened since the accident, in that department and across campus, around our working towards being very compliant toward all of our safety protocols,” Eighmy said. “It’s a continuous, ongoing process to remain compliant.”

URBANA — One student was injured as a result of a fire involving hazardous materials late Thursday afternoon at Roger Adams Lab, 600 S. Mathews Ave., U.

Urbana Fire Department Division Chief Russell Chism said firefighters were called to the lab at 4:59 p.m. after an automatic alarm went off on the fourth floor.

When firefighters arrived at 5:03 p.m., they found a small fire in a ventilation hood on the fourth floor.

Chism said a student doing work under a ventilation hood accidentally started a fire when research chemicals encountered flammable vapors from another chemical nearby.

Chism said firefighters used dry powdered chemicals to put out the fire.

Firefighters had the fire under control within about five minutes, Chism said.

Chism said all persons in the building were evacuated, but he didn’t know how many people were in the building at the time of the fire.

Urbana Fire Chief Mike Dilley said one man, a student, was taken to Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana for treatment of minor burns.

Nobody else was injured, Chism said.

Dilley said damage was limited to the interior of the hood, with damage estimated at about $200.

EDMOND — A University of Central Oklahoma building was temporarily closed after spilled chemicals were found in a chemistry lab, a spokesman said.

Tuesday morning university administration was notified of the spill, and the Edmond Fire Department responded to a suspicious substance call at 7:36 a.m., according to the city fire incidents report.

UCO spokesman Charlie Johnson said the spill occurred in Howell Hall, the math and science building, which was evacuated since it could have presented a fire hazard.

The chemicals, which included ethylene glycol, ethanol and acetone, were in a container which for an unknown reason went from a table top to the floor and broke, Johnson said. The amount of chemicals spilled was enough to cause concern, he said.

Johnson said the classrooms in the building were reopened at 8 a.m. and the lab side was reopened by mid morning. Because it was summer, few people were in the building at the time, he said. No one was injured

CHAPEL HILL (WTVD) -- A HAZMAT crew was called to a gas leak on UNC Chapel Hill's campus Wednesday.

Crews were called to the 100 block on Mason Farm Road around 6 p.m. when officials say someone in a chemistry lab accidentally mixed two chemicals that produced a small amount of chlorine gas.

The cloud of chlorine gas was contained to a lab room inside the Medical Bimolecular Research Building.

Chapel Hill officials say the leak originated on the sixth floor of the nine-story building and it was evacuated.

One person drove himself to the emergency room as a precaution, after experiencing mild respiratory symptoms. He is expected to be okay.

The fire department and UNC Health and Safety crews stayed at the scene until the area was cleared.

A portion of the second floor of the Palma Hall in the University of the Philippines (UP) was destroyed when fire hit the area last Wednesday night.

Arson probers said that the fire started at 10:50 p.m. in one of the chemical laboratories of the building.

At first, it was thought that what transpired was a case of spontaneous combustion, but Dr. Evangeline Amor, College Secretary of the Chemistry Department of UP, explained that what they had in their labs were merely flammable materials.

She explained that it is the inflammable materials that are the usual cause of spontaneous combustion since flammable materials need a spark first or something to ignite it, to actually cause fire.

Dr. Grace Gregorio, Vice Chancellor of UP, said that they might suspend classes, depending on the recommendations of the arson investigators of the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP).

Security personnel of UP tried to put out the fire at first, but they thought better of it when they realized that electricity was still running and they might get electrocuted. A few minutes later, firefighters arrived at the area and began dousing water into the building.

Because of the material contained inside the said laboratories, firefighters of the QC Fire Department mixed chemical with the water that they were using to improve their chances of putting out the fire.

MANILA, Philippines -- A building housing the Chemistry laboratory of the University of the Philippines in Diliman was razed by a three-hour fire late Wednesday night in Quezon City. 

Quezon City fire marshall Senior Superintendent Bobby Baruelo said the Palma Hall Pavilion II of the UP Institute of Chemistry, which also houses the organic chemistry and biochemistry laboratories, was razed by a fire of still undetermined causes at around 11 p.m. Wednesday.

The fire allegedly broke out on the second floor of the building.

Guards valiantly tried to put out the fire using fire extinguishers but were overwhelmed by thick smoke and heat.

UP College of Science Secretary Evangeline Amor told arson probers the fire could have started from flammable and inflammable chemicals stashed in the laboratories. She said the fire could have been started by spontaneous combustion, or a spark somewhere could have triggered it.


Baruelo said that prior to the fire, some people were seen in the building working on unspecified research projects at around 9:45 p.m.

Classes at the building were temporarily suspended yesterday because of the incident, the official said.

No one was reported injured or killed in the blaze even as damage is yet to be determined, according to fire officials. 

A blast occurred at a chemical lab in northeast China's Liaoning Province Wednesday, causing no casualties.

The explosion happened at a laboratory warehouse of the Dalian Chemical Physics Institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Dalian City at around 1:40 p.m., said a man in charge of the security of the institute.

He said the blast happened when hydrogen peroxide in the warehouse was under high temperature.

No one was hurt in the blast, said the man.

Police have cordoned off the area and are looking into the accident.

CARBONDALE- A chemical fire in SIU's Neckers lab last week will cost more than first expected.
New estimates are more than a million dollars, that's four times the initial estimate.

After the smoked cleared, it didn't take long for University officials to know their quarter of a million dollar cleanup estimate, was way off.

Asbestos, a cancer causing fiber used in construction is partially to blame.

"As they started to clean up, they found Asbestos wrapping on some of the pipes so they're going to have to get that out of there," says University Spokesman Rod Sievers.

Sievers says a lack of insurance is another issue.

"Some of the contents were insured, some of the contents were not," he says.

It appears $500,000 will be needed to replace equipment and another $500,000 to fix the building after a student cleaning the lab with hydrocarbons got too close to a heat source.

"It's a very flammable material… because it's a liquid it spread real quick and it caught the rest of the lab on fire," says Sievers.

As a precaution the entire C wing of Neckers is locked up until further notice.
Crews are conducting air quality checks trying to make sure the building is safe.

The University has ruled the fire an accident and the student will not be held responsible.
Sievers says a fire is just one of the risks, when it comes to chemistry.

"Seems like every so often something like this happens, this one just happened to be pretty intense," he says.

HOBOKEN - A hazardous materials spill yesterday in a basement lab at the Burchard Building at the Stevens Institute of Technology forced the evacuation of the six-story facility, officials said.

The problem occurred when someone placed a chemical in a container and then placed that container in a common garbage container, Hoboken Battalion Chief John O'Brien said.


The material leaked out and mixed with materials in the larger container, causing respiratory distress for a number of people in the building, O'Brien said, noting at least one person was taken to an area hospital.

The spill was reported at 3:22 p.m. and people were allowed to re-enter the building at roughly 8:15 p.m., O'Brien said.

The Hoboken Fire Department's haz-mat unit responded to the scene and the Jersey City Fire Department provided backup, O'Brien said.

Wearing protective suits, the Hoboken firefighters removed the hazardous materials from the building and a private company took it away, he said.

The exact material that caused the distress could not be isolated, O'Brien said.

KEN THORBOURNE

New Delhi, June 2 (IANS) The radiation leak fiasco here that claimed one life was a “wake-up call” for Delhi University. Its chemistry department, which came under heavy fire for the incident, is now working on a three-pronged strategy to make lab safety a primary concern.

“Lab safety has taken a whole new meaning after the Cobalt-60 incident…it has come like a wake-up call for us because precautions and lab safety are not always taken very seriously,” A.K. Bakshi, who was appointed head of the department of chemistry after the radiation leak, told IANS.

“We have realised that we should not wait for another accident to happen and therefore have come up with a three-pronged strategy to ensure that lab safety is not compromised by anyone and at any cost,” Bakshi said.

The source of the leak at a scrap market in west Delhi’s Mayapuri area - in which one person was killed and six were affected - was a radioactive gamma cell containing Cobalt-60 that was auctioned as scrap by Delhi University’s chemistry department over two months ago.

The incident posed serious questions on the usage, storage and disposal of radioactive material which are often used for experiments in chemistry labs.

Bakshi said: “As part of the strategy, we will first have a series of workshops - initially for the teachers of the university on lab safety. Experts will be called from various institutions at these workshops. Teachers already know what precautions need to be taken, but these will simply brush up their skills and help them train the students better.”

The workshops will also touch upon the subject of disposal of chemical and radioactive waste, as well as their storage and usage.

“Besides students, the special and formal training will also help teachers impart knowledge to the laboratory staff better, as they are the ones who spend the most amount of time in the labs,” he added.

The workshops, Bakshi said, will be conducted before the academic session begins in July.

A lab safety manual which charts out the dos and don’ts while conducting an experiment is also being prepared. This will be for both the undergraduate and the post graduate levels.

“I am even thinking of suggesting that in the chemistry practical exams, some marks should be reserved for a student’s discipline in following the safety manual through the year. This will make students more aware and careful,” Bakshi told IANS.

Uploading e-learning material on lab safety, how to handle various chemicals and apparatus and other such things on the university’s newly launched e-learning portal is the third strategy.

“Considering that lab staff is the backbone of maintaining a laboratory, I am also thinking of instituting an award for the best maintained lab. This will motivate the staff to keep the lab clean, mark the chemical bottles and ensure the overall safety,” he added.

“We have more than 100 chemistry labs in different colleges in the university and 3,000-4,000 students. Through all these initiatives we just want to make the students feel they are cared for and that the labs are a safe place to work and learn in,” Bakshi said.

A reported chemical spill in Malott Hall on the KU campus turned out to be just water.
Emergency crews and a Hazmat unit were dispatched to the scene, 1251 Wescoe Hall Drive, after reports of the spill came in just before 2 a.m. Thursday.
An individual inside the building had reported a chemical with an odor was leaking from a container onto the floor. The building was evacuated about 2:01 a.m.
Crews searched the seven-story building and discovered the spill on the fifth floor.
KU Police Sgt. Gary Wieden said the liquid that had collected on the floor turned out to be water that had accumulated under a chemical container.

DENMARK, SC (WIS) - A hazardous materials team had to remove 18 canisters of an explosive chemical from Voorhees College, Denmark Fire Department officials said Thursday.
"It's flammable, highly flammable, that's what's scary about ether," National Environmental Management Service worker Fred Ungaretta said about Diethyl Ether. "It's more flammable than gasoline."
On Thursday, Ungaretta neutralized 18 canisters full of the chemical at Voorhees College in Denmark. He said the chemical has a one-year shelf life. DHEC believes the Canisters full of the chemical were 25 years old.
"Over time it forms peroxides which are very unstable," said Ungaretta. "Just turning the cap could cause it to explode."
Ungaretta specializes in removing dangerous chemicals from college campuses. It only took him an hour to do it.
Breland evacuated a daycare near by the college for safety precautions, but some schools were still in session.

Sacramento Fire Department officials say a solvent-type chemical was responsible for a small explosion Thursday afternoon at the UC Davis Medical Center's Oak Park Research Building.
Capt. Jim Doucette said the incident occurred in a lab on the second floor of the two-story building at 2700 Stockton Blvd. He said employees heard an explosion and found the door had blown open on a cabinet used to store waste materials. About 40 people were evacuated as a precaution. No one was injured.
Doucette said the fire department's Haz Mat firefighters entered the building and found that a small amount of waste material that had been properly stored caused the incident. The building was not damaged.
...
She said the explosion occurred in a fire-proof cabinet designed to contain flammable materials.

A U of T building has reopened after it was evacuated Tuesday morning because of a potentially hazardous chemical inside one of the school’s research labs.
Toronto Fire Capt. Mike Strapko said that just before 10 a.m., U of T staff found that a small quantity of an anhydrous acid, about 100 grams, had dried out in a lab at the Banting Institute, a medical research facility at 101 College St.
When dried out, Strapko said, the chemical has the potential to become unstable and is potentially hazardous. As a result, the building was evacuated.
TTC buses were parked nearby to provide shelter for staff and students.
The Toronto Fire hazardous materials technicians and Toronto Police Emergency Task Force bomb squad attended the scene to remove the chemical.
Strapko called the evacuation “a precautionary measure,” saying that the chemical likely wouldn’t have become unstable without an interfering measure, such as heat.

The University of Washington chemistry building was evacuated early Thursday afternoon after students felt ill from vapors.
"There was no spill or leak, but there were three people exposed," department spokesman Helen Fitzpatrick said.
No students were being taken to hospitals, according to fire officials.
Fitzpatrick said the three students were alert shortly after the incident.
The incident sent dozens of students wearing white lab coats into the street.
Fire crews at the scene said the incident involved bromine, a liquid that can be volatile at room temperature. Bromine vapors are toxic.

We would like to report an explosion that occurred in our laboratory last year while performing an oxidative coupling of trimethylsilylacetylene (TMSA) in a Glaser-Hay reaction. The explosion ruptured the 2-L reaction flask and seriously injured a researcher.
This reaction has been routinely used in our and many other laboratories to prepare 1,4-bis(trimethylsilyl)butadiyne-1,3 on a large scale (>100 g), and no dangerous or unusual behavior was previously noted.
The procedure involves purging oxygen through a solution of TMSA in acetone in the presence of a copper(I) chloride:tetramethylethylenediamine complex catalyst at room temperature as described by Andrew B. Holmes et al. (Org. Syntheses 1993, Coll. Vol. 8, 63).

NEWBERG, Ore. -- Classes were canceled until 5 p.m. Tuesday at George Fox University after a lab official found a vial of picric acid that had dried out and posed an explosive hazard to students and faculty, according to school officials.
The picric acid was discovered in an Edward-Holman Science Center lab around 9 a.m., according to information from the Newberg Police Department and from a statement posted Tuesday morning on the George Fox University website.
When in its liquid form, picric acid is harmless, according to school officials, but the acid had been allowed to dry and hardened to a solidified state.
Police and fire departments responded; a bomb squad recovered the vial and detonated it just after noon.
Police said other vials were also located in the building and bomb technicians would be destroying those as well.

Hazardous-materials and bomb teams were sent to Mercer University's campus after some chemistry students accidentally mixed some volatile chemicals.
Mercer University spokesman Mark Vanderhoek says no damages or injuries were reported in the incident late Wednesday afternoon.
"This was accidental, the students did not intend to create a bomb," said Vanderhoek.
A professor realized what chemicals were mixed together and the professor called the university's Environmental Health and Safety office, who then called Hazmat, he said.
The Bibb County hazmat team, a bomb team and a fire truck responded, Vanderhoek said.
He would not say how many students were involved, the type of chemicals mixed or if a professor was present.
He said no other information is available at this time.

The federal occupational health and safety inspector, Comcare, is investigating an explosion in an Australian National University chemistry laboratory on Tuesday night when a student's experiment went wrong.
The explosion in the university's chemistry building prompted the evacuation of about 200 people just before 6pm.
A spokeswoman for the university said a third-year chemistry student had been discharged from hospital later that night after receiving three stitches to her arm and minor burns to her face.
The explosion occurred while the student was disposing of a chemistry experiment that had been completed, but due to the ongoing investigation the spokeswoman could not elaborate.
ACT Fire Brigade district officer Jim Schlizio said the student had been working inside a fume cupboard when the explosion happened.
She went to dispose of her experiment when the chemicals involved combined with waste material from another experiment, causing the blast.

(NECN: Boston, Mass.) - A reaction caused an explosion inside a Boston College lab shortly after 11:30 Saturday morning, according to the Boston Fire Department.
A student was working in a lab when there was a flash reaction to an experiment -- the chemical was non-toxic.
The student was taken to Brigham and Women's hospital for treatment to minor burns and cuts.

East Greenbush, N.Y.--Two Suny East Lab technicials were injured when a test they were conducting went wrong.
A Chemical Flash Fire broke out in the Albany Molecular Building at 17 University Place at 10:18 a.m. Saturday says Clinton Heights Assistant Fire Chief Seth Tracy.
Tracy says the chemical was a solvent called Diethyl-ether. The techs were conducting a reaction test and the reaction they got was a flash fire.
The building was evacuated and building employees were able to contain the fire to the lab area called the Hood, while fire crews responded.
Clinton Fire, Bruen rescue squad, Rensselaer Volunteer Ambulance, Rensselaer County Hazardous Deconamination Teams were all called to the scene.
The two lab techs were transported to Albany Medical Center to be treated for chemical exposure and injuries that were believed to be non-life threatening.

A year before a UCLA staff research assistant was fatally burned in a lab fire, a graduate student was seriously injured in a similar accident that university officials failed to report to state regulators, records released Friday show.
The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health this week fined UCLA $23,900 for the earlier incident, which occurred in November 2007 -- 13 months before Sheharbano "Sheri" Sangji suffered burns that took her life and prompted a campuswide review of lab safety. Cal/OSHA last year fined the university $31,000 in Sangji's death.
In addition, despite sweeping safety measures announced in July, Cal/OSHA last month issued $67,700 in fines for alleged violations that have occurred since Sangji died, records show.

TNT found on campus
Engineering students and staff had an explosive surprise after a staff member found a small amount of TNT in the Schulich School of Engineering building last Friday.
A lab technician found about half a kilogram of a chemical suspected to be trinitrotoluene, during a routine review of chemicals in storage facilities. U of C research communications manager Grady Semmens explained that the material, found in a sealed container, was clearly identified as 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, otherwise known as TNT.
"The university hazardous materials group was contacted to determine the safest way to dispose of the material and the decision was made to contact Calgary Emergency Services," said Semmens.

New Delhi, Mar 3: In the latest update on the BARC, Lok Sabha on Wednesday, Mar 3 was told that the fire was caused low intensity explosive energy released from accidental mixing of small quantities of reactive chemicals.
"Reason for the fire accident as indicated by the report of Investigation Committee set up by BARC is low intensity explosive energy released from accidental mixing of small quantities of reactive chemicals stored in the Chemical Laboratory," Minister of State in PMO Prithviraj Chavan said in a written reply.
He added that the committee has made several suggestions to avert similar incidents in the future.
On Dec 29, fire broke out in a chemical lab at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), which led to the death of two PhD students.

Small chemical spill, fire on Stanford campus
Thursday, February 25, 2010

PALO ALTO, CA (KGO) -- A building on the Stanford campus has been evacuated following a chemical spill and a small fire.
Engineering staudents were using an unknown chemical to clean a piece of equipment in the Paul G. Allen building when the chemical spilled and a small flash fire ensued.
The students pulled the fire alarm and the building was evacuated.
The building is home to the Center for Integrated Systems.
No injuries were reported. The building remains evacuated and the nearby area is closed to traffic.

"On a regular basis," Bresland continues, "we see accidents in chemistry labs as well, mainly academic, high schools, or universities," including, of course, the UCLA fatality. "They've always piqued our interest, but we've never [before] decided to look at them." But after the Texas Tech event, "we decided we ... would start gathering information on these incidents in a more detailed way instead of just receiving the information in our database." CSB's Denver office will spearhead an investigation of the Lubbock incident. "We've written a letter to the university. We've requested certain information. ... At the appropriate time, [we'll] make a visit to the university." Should any other such incidents occur before the end of the fiscal year, the agency intends to monitor them, too. "Then, next fiscal year, starting October first, if we have enough information, we'll do a study of the issue and hopefully come up with some recommendations."

Chemical explosion rocks Tech, injures grad student
A chemical explosion at the Technological Institute, 2145 Sheridan Road, injured a Northwestern graduate student Sunday morning, police said.
The male student had been mixing chemicals, including methanol and (diacetoxyiodo)benzene, in a flask, said NU Deputy Police Chief Daniel McAleer. When the flask exploded, it spewed glass across the room and on the floor, he said.
The student had cuts on his right arm and a cut and bruise on his chest where he was struck by flying glass, police said.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Three people received medical treatment Monday morning after a chemical spilled at a building that is part of the UC Davis Medical Center complex, a fire official said.
The accident occurred at 2521 Stockton Blvd., said Capt. Jim Doucette of Sacramento Fire Deparmtent.
Doucette said an ounce or two of formaldehyde spilled, causing a handful of people to get dizzy. The victims were treated at the scene and were not taken to a hospital.
The spill occurred in a fourth-floor medical office.
The main UC Davis Medical Center hospital was not affected, Doucette said.