Today Sat Sun
It is forcast to be Mostly Cloudy at 10:00 PM EST on February 03, 2012
Mostly Cloudy
6°/-3°		 It is forcast to be Partly Cloudy at 10:00 PM EST on February 04, 2012
Partly Cloudy
4°/-2°		 It is forcast to be Partly Cloudy at 10:00 PM EST on February 05, 2012
Partly Cloudy
3°/-2°

24 Comments

news

Explosions in North York Shake City

By David Topping

20080810explosion.jpg

A series of huge explosions near Keele and Wilson at 3:50 a.m. this morning (skip to 1:50 in this video or 0:53 in this one for the most dramatic ones) were felt across Toronto, after a fire started at Sunrise Propane Industrial Gases at 54 Murray Road—a fire that is only now dying down. Since then, thousands of people have been evacuated, and the 401 has been closed, as have Downsview, Wilson, and Yorkdale TTC stations. Only minor injuries have been reported, but 680 News reports that fire officials told them one person is unaccounted for.
The National Post, Globe, and Star have all been providing coverage, while Rannie Turingan has been posting photos and a video on photojunkie, BlogTO’s been live-blogging it since 6:50 a.m., and members of the Toronto LiveJournal Community are sharing their stories.
Photo by photojunkie from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Comments

  • PickleToes

    Oh, finally Torontoist covers something that happened outside of the downtown core.

  • accozzaglia

    I was working at my desk when the sound of what seemed like very nearby thunder. I looked up at the radar and didn’t see any showers. So I messaged my friend:
    From: accozzaglia
    Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 03:49:16 -0400
    To: Eve N.
    “Well, that’s interesting: a prominent thunderclap at 3:48a when the radar shows no precip activity in a 40km radius (even that is only light showers).”
    Followed by:
    From: accozzaglia
    Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 03:49:38 -0400
    To: Eve N.
    “It almost makes me wonder if sth explodeded.”
    Then I looked out the window (this was near Dupont). The sky was glowing reddish-orange. Were it less ruddy, I’d have mistook it for sodium vapour light pollution, but the colour was too deep, too varied, and a chain of smaller rumblings kept happening. So I left to see where and what it was. By the time I reached about Rogers and Keele, still unaware of what it was, I get this response:
    From: Eve N.
    Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 09:41:24 GMT
    To: accozzaglia
    “680 says a propane depot blew out…danger is ongoing….no word on injuries yet but over 20 indiv. explosions.”
    So I returned home. Nasty circumstances, that.

  • accozzaglia

    Also, awesomeologists lose their bite when they have a chip on their shoulder. It’s like going from a sassy, tart Granny Smith — fresh and still warm from the sun-drenched tree, to a mealy, inept Red Delicious in February after sitting in storage for four months.

  • matty

    I like the narration on video 2

  • PickleToes

    When I’m the one that’s challenging dogma, I’ll never loose my freshness.

  • Machinations

    But you will lose your spelling ability.

  • tommertron

    This woke my wife and I up last night and freaked the hell out of us, and we couldn’t sleep for a while why we tried to find out what was going on.
    Funnily enough, that Live Journal page was the only thing we stumbled upon showing any mention of it. Seeing other people’s reactions and getting some information helped calm us down a bit (we ranged from thinking either Godzilla or nuclear attack.)
    Kudos to the blogosphere for getting this info out there, and shame on CP24 and the other TV news outlets for not having anything for at least an hour and half (and only a text snippet headline after that.) Honestly, why couldn’t CP24 get someone on there live immediately after this started happening? It would have been a good public service, and this thing is really in their mandate to do.

  • antiboy

    Wouldn’t that be so awesome if it was Godzilla though?!

  • Machinations

    Not gonna lie, it definitely reminded me a lot of the initial panic scenes of Cloverfield.

  • rek

    http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbw_K8pfNfo
    You can see the shockwave.

  • Bleb

    There’s palpable disappointment in Ann Rohmer’s voice every time she mentions there are no reports of serious injury.

  • chris fizik

    totally Cloverfield-esque for sure
    saw that clip on CP24 played a bunch too
    this is all such a ‘blogger’ event … newsmedia doesnt’ stand a chance..so they keep interviewing flickr users and locals that have been blogging and txting it all day

  • David Topping

    680 News reported (and the Globe now confirms) that a firefighter was rushed to the hospital with no vital signs…

  • PickleToes

    rek: Wow, that video is intense.

  • accozzaglia

    The CBC are now reporting that the firefighter succumbed to his injuries.

  • Miles Storey

    I can’t believe I didn’t notice this, I was up at the time with windows open reading, no music or tv. I must have thought it was thunder. The video of that fireball is amazing, just to think that’s our city.

  • matty

    Speaking of cloverfield, do you think this was a viral markeing scam for cloverfield 2?

  • ked

    680 news were right on it. When the initial explosion woke me up and I heard more going off – I gathered my flashlight, bottle of water, phone and radio (yeah, I’m ready) and waited to hear what was happening. I guess they had lots of listeners calling in and that gave them a pretty quick indication that something was up.

  • atomeyes99

    it woke me out of a deep sleep. scared the crap out of me….
    and i live 27 km from the blast site.

  • ambrose

    I’m far east from it, but I also heard it – windows shook quite a bit too. My cousin asked me if there were any earthquakes in T.O. but I just shrugged it off. Kinda wish I looked out my window for a longer time.

  • Solex

    Too bad Superman wasn’t here to stop it; he would have just iced a whole lake, lifted the ice up off the lake, and then dropped it on the fire. Fire put out, problem solved.

  • Gauldar

    Solex,
    Sure, that’s all swell but what about the asbestos?

  • Solex

    Oh, he’d find a way to suck it up and put it away safely-he’s Superman, not Hancock. FYI to everybody-I was making a joke in the last post.

  • Gauldar

    Yeah, but then there will be a situation where there is a peice of kryptonite in the asbestos then he will get weak and die from it, then we will have to go through all that death of superman shit again. I ain’t doing that a second time!