Chocolate factory explosion in Pennsylvania caught on camera

[MechAg94]

Chocolate factory explosion in Pennsylvania caught on camera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q_WEOjVt7U

I saw this video over the weekend.  Have any of you heard anything else? 

2 more victims found dead following chocolate factory explosion; 7 people killed
https://6abc.com/chocolate-factory-on-fire-flames-berks-county-west-reading/13020222/

WEST READING, Pennsylvania (WPVI) -- Officials say two more people have been found dead following the devastating explosion at the R.M. Palmer Company in West Reading, Pennsylvania.
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"It's pretty leveled, unfortunately, there's not too much to be able to salvage from it," said West Reading Mayor Samantha Kaag. "In the front, with the church and the apartments, the explosion was so big that it moved that building four feet forward."

There has been no official word on the cause of this blast, including whether it was caused by a gas leak.

[AZRedhawk44]

"From Hell's Heart, I stab at thee!"

--Willy Wonka, probably

[Tuco]

I couldn't find an appropriate way to blame it on a pressure situation caused by Agustus Gloop

[BobR]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC67ueQE_ts


bob

[K Frame]

Haven't heard anything definitive, but my guess is a gas leak.

[BobR]

Haven't heard anything definitive, but my guess is a gas leak.

That's kind of what I posted! 

I was thinking that also but how do they not smell a concentration that high.

There is also the unlikely but possible sugar dust explosion.

bob

[French G.]

I think the dust explosion may be more likely. Apparently sugar gets mixed and moved in ducting or piping with pressurized air. Yikes. I was working in the Hershey plant where they bring in peanuts and sugar in rail car quantities, plant seemed quite safe but now I am almost wanting to hang out in the ammonia refrigerant environs of a chicken plant.

[MechAg94]

I didn't see the article mention the name of the company. 

The article did mention gas leaks, but mostly after the fact do to entire nearby buildings getting shifted a few feet among other effects. 

[Perd Hapley]

I didn't see the article mention the name of the company. 

The article did mention gas leaks, but mostly after the fact do to entire nearby buildings getting shifted a few feet among other effects.

"R.M. Palmer"  (in the OP)

[230RN]

Boy, that really disassembled that building!

It's hard to see how you can have a fire, and then a huge gas explosion.  I suppose it's possible, but sounds strange.

Dust explosion ignited by a fire just sounds more likely.

The danger of dust explosions reminds me of how everybody forgets about masses of ammonium nitrate until  some lets go.   I seem to recall somewhere about a dust explosion due to the to activity of cleaning it up.  I can see a small fire (gas leak?) igniting a dust cloud.  Anyhow, speculations aside, I'd be interested in a definitive cause.

I feel bad for the human loss.  In some explosions, i.e., Beirut, corpses are never found.


Beirut crater; 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate:

[K Frame]

That's kind of what I posted! 

I was thinking that also but how do they not smell a concentration that high.

There is also the unlikely but possible sugar dust explosion.

bob

Remember, it was a chocolate factor. LOTS of very strong odors to mask a gas leak.

An organic dust explosion is an interesting theory, but that would have to be a LOT of sugar dust. An explosion that large usually happens at a refinery or the like.

There was a massive explosion at a sugar refinery in Georgia in 2008 that killed 15, IIRC, and of course grain mill/elevator explosions are pretty common.

I just don't see a chocolate factory handling those kind of quantities of sugar, though.

[K Frame]

"It's hard to see how you can have a fire, and then a huge gas explosion.  I suppose it's possible, but sounds strange."

I've not seen anything indicating that there was a fire before the explosion occurred. Everything I've seen is more along the lines of boom then fire.

[HankB]

Interesting theory about a sugar dust explosion. When I was little, my father worked for a sugar company where they used to deliver sugar in barges - 4 million pounds of refined white sugar per barge, loaded as if it was gravel or sand. To unload, a crane was used to lower a front end loader into the barge, and it scooped up the sugar and dumped it in a hopper feeding a conveyor to bring it into the plant, where packaging & additional processing was done to make powdered sugar and sugar syrup. I don't remember him ever mentioning precautions about sugar dust explosions, but they never had one before or (AFAIK) since.

I asked "Daddy, don't rats and bugs get into the sugar? Won't they get boiled down into the syrup?"

Daddy: "Don't ask."

I lost a good part of my sweet tooth then. 

[MechAg94]

I thought Beirut was fire with a bunch of fireworks plus many tons of ammonium nitrate.  Been a while since I looked at that. 

Big Boom
https://armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=62659.0

[RocketMan]

Haven't heard anything definitive, but my guess is a gas leak.

One of the stories I read mentioned employees had complained about smelling gas that morning.

[K Frame]

One of the stories I read mentioned employees had complained about smelling gas that morning.

If true, that is what they call a clue.

The American Viscose plant in Lewistown, PA, where my Grandfather worked his entire career had a gas explosion in one of the buildings in the 1950s or 1960s. Killed 5, IIRC. Happened in the middle of the day with a full shift on the floor.

[RoadKingLarry]

From Hell's heart I stab at thee -  Willy Wonka

[230RN]

I thought Beirut was fire with a bunch of fireworks plus many tons of ammonium nitrate.  Been a while since I looked at that. 

Big Boom
https://armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=62659.0

^ That link is blocked for me.

The fireworks fire was reportedly in a warehouse nearby,  Before the main explosion, you could see many flashes of pyrotechnics going off, then the main explosion in the AN building.  It always looked to me like a pyro device like an aerial salute flew into the AN warehouse, went off, and detonated the AN.  Some reports indicate fireworks were stored in the same building as the AN:

https://youtu.be/LNDhIGR-83w

https://youtu.be/NgQ7jh9mrWs

https://youtu.be/FnSr820S2Mk

K Frame, I thought somewhere I read of a small fire first in the chocolate explosion, but it may be misreporting or misreading.  As I mentioned, it was difficult to imagine a small fire then igniting a gas leak.  As I also said, I await definitive analysis.