Six dead in catastrophic sugar explosion

[Sionnach Glic]

Sugar explodes? Weird.

Officials in the US state of Georgia say at least six people have died in an explosion at a sugar refinery.

"We have confirmed six dead," Georgia Fire Commissioner John Oxendine told CNN television. "We are still looking for other survivors."

Dozens more people were injured, some seriously, in the blast at Imperial Sugar in a suburb of Savannah.

Firefighters say the blaze is now under control, many hours after the blast on Thursday evening.

It is believed to have been caused by sugar dust exploding.

The explosion could be heard throughout the suburb of Port Wentworth and shook homes several kilometres (miles) away.

Police said the damage at the refinery was "extensive".

As many as 100 people were thought to have been working in the part of the plant where the explosion took place.

About 40 people are reported to have been taken to hospitals, some airlifted to a specialist burns centre in Augusta. Police say there were even more people with minor injuries. Mr Oxendine said other people were unaccounted for who could be in the building.

Imperial Sugar chief executive John Sheptor said the explosion had occurred at around 1920 (0020 GMT) on Thursday in a silo where refined sugar was stored until being packaged.

"As far as we know, it was a sugar dust explosion," he said.

Sugar dust can explode if it is mixed with air in a kind of cloud formation and then ignited.

'Loud boom'

Nakishya Hill, a machine operator who escaped from the third floor of the refinery, said the explosion had set much of the site on fire.

"All I know is, I heard a loud boom and everything came down," she told Associated Press news agency. "When I got up, I went down and found a couple of people and we climbed out of there from the third floor to the first floor. Half of the floor was gone. The second floor was debris, the first floor was debris," she said.

"All I could do when I got down was take off running."

Dr Jay Goldstein of the Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah said some patients were being treated for "significant burns".

"We've seen people that have had burns to their hands all the way to about 80 to 90% of their body," he said.

Source

[Mikey]

From what I understand, the explosion has been tentatively linked to sugar dust in certain mechanisms.

Did nobody plan, or design equipment, for the eventuality of sugar dust in a sugar processing plant?

[Captain Picard's Hair]

It's my understanding that dust explosions in grain elevators, which unavoidably raise large amounts of dust, are rather common. I've also heard that if field corn (the type used for animal field and all "Corn" based products as opposed to sweet corn, made for direct human consumption - and the type of corn which makes up the vast majority of all corn grown) is stored in silos without being sufficiently dried, fire can result. Apparently, what happens is that bacteria feast on the overly moist corn, generating heat which can lead to a fire.

[Mikey]

Which is a fairly common natural process. However, one would think that a plant designed for such usage would have sufficient dehumidifiers, temperature conrol, etc.

[sunnyside]

Lots of things you wouldn't expect burn/explode when they are fine enough allowing for high surface area in contact with air.

For example steel burns (go on try lighting up some steel wool).

And I don't know what happened at the plant. But there could have been a spill.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Which is a fairly common natural process. However, one would think that a plant designed for such usage would have sufficient dehumidifiers, temperature conrol, etc.

I think they put the corn through some sort of huge hot-air dryer before storing it in the silos. Pretty much anything that goes into a silo gets dried.

[Reliant121]

Lots of things you wouldn't expect burn/explode when they are fine enough allowing for high surface area in contact with air.

For example steel burns (go on try lighting up some steel wool).

And I don't know what happened at the plant. But there could have been a spill.

True...Walnuts for example are a high explosive...

[Captain Picard's Hair]

I would expect that pretty much anything we eat can burn, since the metabolism of food in the body itself can be compared to a sort of controlled fire (oxidation).

[Captain Picard's Hair]

... with the exception of, say, soup

[Captain Seafort]

Not just that, but literally anything becomes explosive if you grind it down to a fine enough powder - explosions in partially filled coal and flour bunkers are quite common.

[Mikey]

All this is true, which backs up my point. Presumably, the people who design and build sugar refineries have experience with this sort of thing.

[sunnyside]

Not just that, but literally anything becomes explosive if you grind it down to a fine enough powder - explosions in partially filled coal and flour bunkers are quite common.

Well, not anything. It has to be something that wants to undergo a reaction. iron burns because it wants to oxidize. Iron that has already been oxidized (rust) wouldn't burn even in powder form.

If I had to make a guess for the sugar thing I'd say either.

1. There was some kind of failure they couldn't really plan for. Like somebody popping a few viagras for a nooner and then coming back and ramming something with a forklift.

2. They knew there was some risk, but it was deemed acceptable compared to the cost of fixing it. There is a point where that tradeoff is reach in every factory, otherwise we'd all just sit in little plastic rooms. Possibly these people picked wrong.