Huge Explosion In Toronto

[RiG]

Thought one of our Canadian posters might have mentioned this!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7553561.stm

Some unbelievable stuff on YouTube as well:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QIpdgKBAiQw&...feature=related

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ya11Z3TW26g&...feature=related

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Wsm7yQLW3Fo&feature=bz303

[Scotty]

Thought one of our Canadian posters might have mentioned this!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7553561.stm

didnt realise it would be interesting to you guys

This may give a better view.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/08/10/...e.html?ref=rss

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/08/10/...-residents.html

We live roughly about 15Km to the east of where this happened and although the missus says she heard/felt the blast around 4am, I slept right through.

I would have known all about it if it had happened on a weekday though as they basically shutdown the main highway (which is the busiest one in North America !!!) across Toronto from the airport 15Km to the west of the blast right to the edge of my neighbourhood 15Km to the east (that 30Km stretch is the busiest part of the busiest highway as well !!!).

[RiG]

Feels a bit bad to say this but that photo is strangely beautiful. Can't believe you slept through it. Seems it took some time for folk to realise what had happened. First thoughts seemed to be that a plane had crashed :o

[Scotty]

Feels a bit bad to say this but that photo is strangely beautiful.

In the same way that some of the 911 photos are also strangely beautiful .... until you realise the magnitude of what happened. Luckily in Toronto's case, there have been no reported deaths as a direct result of the explosion although one firefighter did die on the scene (sounds like he may have had a seizure or heart attack or something like that) and one plant worker is still (at this time) classified as missing.

There will be a lot of **** to hit the fan in coming days, weeks and months not least because of the proximity to housing ... but thats Toronto for you .... There are literally thousands of small industrial units dotted about all over the city and in a lot of cases, they are quite near to housing.

Its partly a leagacy from when Toronto's suburbs (who all had their own separate borders and administrations) and the main city of toronto amalgamated into one administrative "mega-city" and partly because Toronto seems to be growing northwards at a phenomenal rate and residential areas are squeezing themselves closer and closer to commercial and industrial zones. I will be interested to hear just how many of those houses were actually there before the propane plant and in turn, how many were there before the industrial area ... not many I would guess.

The area of the explosion is in a small western portion of one of the old suburban cities called North York. North York is pretty large and that the area alongside and to the north of the 401 highway is quite heavily industrial with what housing there is being of the low cost variety. There is huge development to the west of there in the HWY400 corridor and to the east of it in the Yonge St corridor.

I heard on the radio this morning that the explosion "went as planned" so to speak. The safety rules seemingly dictate the positioning of tanks so that in the event of a catastrophe, any explosion would go North-South instead of East-West and that is exactly what happened !!!!

Can't believe you slept through it. Seems it took some time for folk to realise what had happened. First thoughts seemed to be that a plane had crashed :o

I was canoeing on Saturday and was dead to the world by about 10pm on Saturday night. That scene from Jumanji could have happened in my front room and I would have been none the wiser !

[Glebeict]

Explosion in Toronto

Riots in Montreal

Peace in Ottawa

Except the Politicans

[Scotty]

Peace in Ottawa

Only because Parliament is on holiday.