http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=9iINf47-cjghttp://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=oV5udSWJcZohttp://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=cMqOjJuQPCsFirefighter battling blast rushed to hospital 'without vital signs'Following the massive propane explosion and fire that has shut down the area around Wilson Ave. and Keele St., the TTC has closed the Downsview, Wilson and Yorkdale subway stations until further notice. Trains on Yonge-University-Spadina line are turning back at Lawrence West Station.
Several bus routes are being diverted around the evacuation area:
A series of explosions early today at the massive Sunrise Propane Industrial Gases distribution plant in the Wilson Ave. and Keele St. area led to a shutdown of a chunk of the city’s northwest corner and the evacuation of thousands of residents, many of them elderly.
But firefighters reported that there were only a handful of people with minor injuries and one, believed to be Sunrise’s truck dispatcher, unaccounted for.
Police spokesperson Mark Pugash has also confirmed that a firefighter “without vital signs” has been rushed from the scene to hospital.
The neighbourhood “got off very lucky,” said Division Commander Bob O’Hallarn.
“The situation has improved. It’s going in the right direction. It’s still a risk but not as much of a risk as it was before.
"There was a very, very large amount of fire when we arrived and the extent of the explosion, if the blast was heard as far away as it was, could have been much more serious.”
Though much of the neighbourhood looks like a war zone, O’Hallarn said it was likely residents would be allowed to return to their homes later today.
Having said that, they will face shattered windows, garage doors blown off their hinges, roofs damaged by flying chunks of metal and trees torn apart by the force of the conflagration.
Confusion reigned shortly before 3 this afternoon when the TTC announced it was reopening subway service to the area, including to the station at Yorkdale Mall where, at the same time, officials at the mall were ordering an evacuation of the property.
Meantime, as fire crews got close to extinguishing two rail tanks each containing up to 220,000 litres of propane that could have caused another cataclysmic blast, locals were demanding to know why Sunrise Propane Industrial Gases was allowed to move into a well-established residential neighbourhood about five years ago.
“Why would they allow a propane company to open up in a residential area?” said Fernando Caschera, 56. “I don’t understand.”
Sunrise, open around the clock as a propane dealer, “should never have been there in the first place,” said Merv Mostoway, 73.
“It was only a matter of time – I knew one day something stupid would happen.”
The blasts came just before 4 a.m., shattering windows and reportedly setting several buildings on fire. Police with bullhorns ordered the evacuation of everyone within a 1.6-kilometre radius of Sunrise Propane.
A no-fly zone for small aircraft was ordered above the scene and traffic backed up for kilometres as Highways 400 and 401 were closed down.
But except for a few minor injuries, and the one unaccounted person (likely the dispatcher at the 24-hour-service propane company), literally everyone escaped harm.
A second minor miracle could be that the explosions didn’t occur 24 hours later. This would have caused chaos for Monday morning rush-hour traffic and crippled many downtown businesses.
Jeff Green, 40, lives on the next street to Sunrise. He said he thought the first explosion was thunder and then, when he looked out of the window, that “a house was on fire.?.?. no big deal.”
“Then I realized the floor, my bed, the bathroom were covered in broken glass.”
He got into his car to take a closer look and, as he drove with the window down, “the whole . . . thing blew up. There was so much heat - like turning a stove burner on full and putting your face next to it. There was a fireball that had to be 20 storeys high and 20 storeys wide. And this awful hissing sound of escaping gas.”
Green went back to his house, got his parents and took them to a hotel near Yorkdale Mall. Only then, he said, did he realize “the absolutely insane danger of having that propane facility so close to a community. I’d never thought about it before. I feel like an idiot now. We were totally unprepared.
“There has to be an official inquiry. They should search the country and if there are other facilities like this close to houses, they’ve got to move them.”
Mostoway lives with his mother Doris, 91, who uses a wheelchair. “I can’t get around so I had to wait for him to come and get me,” she said. “It scared me to death.”
“It took me a half hour to put my clothes on, it was booming so bad,” said her son. “Half the people on the street were running out of their houses naked, for god’s sake.”
Carlos Montoya recalled “explosion after explosion .?.?. I thought it was a terrorist attack.”
Other people thought it was an earthquake or an airliner crashing.
“It sounded like an atomic bomb,” said Caschera. “The house shook. It was bright-lit sky like daylight. It made me fall off the bed. My father wakes up and he goes, `What are you making so much noise for?’ I said, `Dad, that wasn’t me.’ Then the next explosion.?.?. I said, `Get out! Get out! Get out!’?”
The TTC laid on shuttle buses for evacuees who were first taken to CFB Downsview and then to York University.
Dozens of others gathered at a Coffee Time store at Dufferin and Wilson, buying each other coffee, lending each other clothes and, in some cases, discovering that they lived in the same three-storey buildings in the neighbourhood, most of which are above stores.
Jillian Manning, her husband Wayne and their 6-month-old son Bryce live above the hair salon that she runs. She was worried because she’d been scheduled to do a bride’s hair and makeup later in the morning.
“I feel bad,” Manning said. “I hope she found someone.”
With the power out, the Mannings used a cellphone to light their way out of their apartment. They had no socks or formula for the baby but someone in the parking lot gave them what they needed, Jillian said.
“Everybody was running around with nighties on and no shoes,” she said. “It feels like I’m sleepwalking now.”
The couple are well insured, she said, but Montoya and others said they had no insurance.
“It was just a tremendous explosion and blew all the windows out of the house, just blew the house up, and I just managed to get out of there in time,” said Robert Halman, who was covered in cuts and bruises as he fled his home.
Halman said he saw a “huge fireball” and heard “multiple explosions,” and, as he ran out of his house, a “wave of heat” was not far behind.
An emergency worker at Bombardier Aerospace’s Downsview operation, said he saw propane tanks falling from the sky
More than 120 firefighters were on the scene and police went door to door making sure everyone was out of the area. Propane burns clean and quickly and air quality was not a concern, O’Hallarn said.
The alarm was raised after a driver filling up his tanker spotted smoke at Sunrise Propane.
The dispatcher of the 24-hour propane company may be missing. Authorities said this morning that one person is unaccounted for and that it may be the person who dispatches trucks for Sunrise Propane.
At the very least it is someone who works for the company and was in the north-Toronto facility at the time of the explosipons.
Some residents wearing only their nightclothes walked to nearby Yorkdale Mall, where security gave them water and a place to rest until they found shelter elsewhere.
Beatrice Zampini, 48, wiped away tears as she sat in the mall’s makeshift emergency shelter with her teenage son and daughter by her side. She hadn’t heard from her husband, Gino, who disappeared in the midst of the chaos.
“He was going to check on my parents, but the explosions were getting louder and louder, so the three of us just ran and ran and ran,” she said.
Residents described their neighbourhood as a tight-knit community where extended families lived on the same street.
The blast was heard and felt as far away as Yonge and Sheppard where people were awakened, got dressed and gathered in the streets outside their homes.
The Sunrise website says the company serves residential, industrial and agriculture clients. The industrial gases it supplies includes nitrogen, propane, helium and argon. It also provides safety training for propane and dangerous goods certificates.
Propane is stored and transported in a compressed liquid form, vapourizing only when pressure is released. The gas is an asphyxiant, meaning it cuts off oxygen to the body and can cause suffocation. Exposure to high levels of propane can cause health problems, including frostbite if it touches skin.
Josei Miceli, 59, who has lived in the area for 40 years says it’s full of elderly people who aren’t mobile.
“We were concerned when this company moved at the end of the street,” said Miceli, who snatched her small Yorkshire terrier, Harley, before fleeing her home. “But we weren’t even advised that they were going to be there. They just moved in and we’ve been concerned since they were there that something like this would happen. I’m surprised that they let a company like that move in a residential area.”
With files from Michele Henry, Noor Javed, Daniel Dale, Paola Loriggio and Canadian Press
Bron: thestar.com
