Safety expert says Mount Pearl explosion could have been much worse

An expert in safety and engineering risks says it's a marvel this week's explosion in Mount Pearl didn't trigger a chain reaction and lead to fatalities.

Faisal Khan is a professor at Memorial University, and in an interview with CBC News, he stressed how the outcome of this explosion must be studied to prevent another one from happening in the future.

One thing he said was cause for concern was debris that landed just outside a fence protecting several propane tanks.

"I'm quite thankful to Almighty that they actually didn't penetrate to the next property," said Khan.

"Had that happened [there] would have been a very serious chain effect."

Possibly a vapour cloud explosion

The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary said Tuesday that threepeople who worked at the Trimac Transportation premises were injured in the blast and sent to hospital with non life-threatening injuries.

The major crimes unit at the RNC is investigating the explosion, and an official with the St. John's Regional Fire Department has said they believe the explosion happened while employees were working on a fuel tank.

"It would be the fumes inside those tanks, if that's in fact the cause of this," said acting platoon chief Scott Tilley.

Khan has a theory along those lines, too.

While he's not involved with the investigation, his background leads him to believe this event was a "vapour cloud explosion."

"Hydrocarbons might have leaked from the tank [and] formed a vapour cloud," he said.

"The smaller the confinement and the larger the energy, the more intense the explosion would be."

Could have been worse

Khan didn't know if employees were welding at the time of the explosion, but said if welding occurs within a confined area where there's an undetected vapour cloud, the results can be disastrous.

"It's almost given that an incident is likely to happen, and to avoid that, and to prevent that, we need a varied series of checks and balances."

He said there was likely no fire after the explosion because the blast consumed all of the leaked hydrocarbon.

"There have been past instances in history, where such series of accidents have happened and cause catastrophic and multiple fatalities and huge property loss," said Khan.

Trimac is not commenting on the explosion.

"My belief is that we have to look far beyond the investigation and take this as a lesson to learn and prepare ourselves so events such as these never happen."

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