40,000 evacuated amid threat of California chemical tank explosion

By Global News

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Authorities in Southern California are racing to figure out how to prevent the explosion of a chemical storage tank. The pressurized tank, located at an aerospace plastics facility roughly 50 kilometres south-east of Los Angeles, holds between 23,000 and 26,000 litres of a toxic chemical called methyl methacrylate, which is described as a volatile and flammable liquid used to make plastics. On Thursday, the liquid began vapourizing and venting into the air after the tank overheated. "There are literally two options left remaining. One, the tank fails and spills a total of about six to 7,000 gallons of very bad chemicals into the parking lot in that area. Or two, the tank goes into a thermal runaway and blows up, affecting the tanks that are around them that have fuel or the chemicals in them as well," Orange County Fire Chief Craig Covey said. As Nivrita Ganguly reports, the evacuation zone has widely expanded, impacting tens of thousands of residents who are being asked to shelter

Tags: global news, California, Orange county, Garden Grove, US, United States, Emergency, Aerospace plastics facility, Methyl Methacrylate, chemical explosion, Mass evacuation, plastics facility, chemical leak, evacuation zone