East Renfrewshire is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It was formed in 1996, as a successor to the Eastwood district of the Strathclyde region. The northeastern part of the council area is close to Glasgow and many of the council area's northern settlements fall into the Greater Glasgow urban area.
On 11 May 2004, the ICL Plastics factory, in the Woodside district of Maryhill, Glasgow in western Scotland, exploded. Nine people were killed, including two company directors, and 33 injured, 15 seriously. The four-storey building was largely destroyed.
A mining accident is an accident that occurs during the process of mining minerals or metals. Thousands of miners die from mining accidents each year, especially from underground coal mining, although accidents also occur in hard rock mining. Coal mining is considered much more hazardous than hard rock mining due to flat-lying rock strata, generally incompetent rock, the presence of methane gas, and coal dust. Most of the deaths these days occur in developing countries, and rural parts of developed countries where safety measures are not practiced as fully. A mining disaster is an incident where there are five or more fatalities.
The Cleveland East Ohio Gas explosion occurred on the afternoon of Friday, October 20, 1944. The resulting gas leak, explosion and fires killed 131 people and destroyed a one-square-mile area on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio.
The New London School explosion occurred on March 18, 1937, when a natural gas leak caused an explosion and destroyed the London School in New London, Texas, United States. The disaster killed more than 300 students and teachers. As of 2021, the event is the third-deadliest disaster in the history of Texas, after the 1900 Galveston hurricane and the 1947 Texas City disaster.
A gas explosion is the ignition of a mixture of air and flammable gas, typically from a gas leak. In household accidents, the principal explosive gases are those used for heating or cooking purposes such as natural gas, methane, propane, butane. In industrial explosions, many other gases, like hydrogen, as well as evaporated (gaseous) gasoline or ethanol play an important role. Industrial gas explosions can be prevented with the use of intrinsic safety barriers to prevent ignition, or use of alternative energy.
The Humberto Vidal explosion was a gas explosion that occurred on November 21, 1996 at the Humberto Vidal shoe store in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico. The explosion killed 33 and wounded 69 others when the building collapsed. It is one of the deadliest disasters to have occurred on the island.
The Ufa train disaster was a railway accident that occurred on 4 June 1989, in Iglinsky District, Bashkir ASSR, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, when an explosion killed 575 people and injured 800 more. It is the deadliest rail disaster during peacetime in Soviet/Russian history and the second-deadliest overall after the Vereshchyovka train disaster. This accident took place exactly a year after the 1988 Arzamas train disaster.
The Felling Colliery in Britain, suffered four disasters in the 19th century, in 1812, 1813, 1821 and 1847. By far the worst of the four was the 1812 disaster which claimed 92 lives on 25 May 1812. The loss of life in the 1812 disaster was one of the motivators for the development of miners' safety lamps such as the Geordie lamp and the Davy lamp.
The Richmond, Indiana, explosion was a double explosion in the United States in 1968. It occurred at 1:47 PM EST on April 6, in downtown Richmond, Indiana. The explosions killed 41 people and injured more than 150. The primary explosion was due to natural gas leaking from one or more faulty transmission lines under the Marting Arms sporting goods store, located on the southeast corner of the intersection of 6th and Main streets. A secondary explosion was caused by gunpowder stored inside the building.
The San Bruno pipeline explosion occurred at 6:11 pm PDT on September 9, 2010, in San Bruno, California, when a 30-inch (76 cm) diameter steel natural gas pipeline owned by Pacific Gas & Electric exploded into flames in the Crestmoor residential neighborhood 2 miles (3.2 km) west of San Francisco International Airport near Skyline Boulevard and San Bruno Avenue. The loud roar and shaking led some residents of the area, first responders, and news media to initially believe that it was an earthquake or that a large airplane had crashed. It took crews nearly an hour to determine it was a gas pipeline explosion. As of September 29, 2010, the death toll was eight people. The United States Geological Survey registered the explosion and resulting shock wave as a magnitude 1.1 earthquake. Eyewitnesses reported the initial blast "shot a fireball more than 1,000 feet (300 m) in the air".
The Abbeystead disaster occurred on the evening of 23 May 1984 when a methane gas explosion destroyed a waterworks' valve house at Abbeystead, Lancashire, England, killing 16 people. A group of 44 visitors were inside the underground building at the time, attending a public presentation by North West Water Authority (NWWA) to demonstrate the operations of the station. Eight were killed instantly by the explosion, and the others were severely injured. The explosion also caused the concrete roof to fall down onto the group, destroying the steel-mesh floor and throwing some of the victims into the water chambers below, which rapidly filled with river water. Another eight people subsequently died of their injuries in hospital; an 11-year-old boy and his mother were among the dead. The official inquiry into the disaster concluded that the methane had seeped from coal deposits 4,000 feet below ground and had built up in an empty pipeline. The gas was then ejected into the valve house by the sudden pressure of water as the pumps were switched on. The cause of ignition has never been determined.
The 1971 Ibrox disaster, also known as the Second Ibrox Disaster, was a crush among the crowd at an Old Firm football game, which led to 66 deaths and more than 200 injuries. It happened on 2 January 1971 in an exit stairway at Ibrox Park in Glasgow, Scotland. It was the worst football disaster until the Bradford City stadium fire in Bradford, England, in 1985. This was followed by 97 deaths in the Hillsborough disaster in Sheffield, England, in 1989.
On 18 January 2019, a pipeline transporting gasoline exploded in the town of Tlahuelilpan, in the Mexican state of Hidalgo. The blast killed at least 137 people and injured dozens more. Mexican authorities blamed fuel thieves, who had illegally tapped the pipeline. The explosion was particularly deadly because large crowds of people had gathered at the scene to steal fuel. Security forces tried to persuade people to move away from the scene, but they were outnumbered and asked not to engage with civilians for fear of causing a violent confrontation. The leak was reported at 17:04 CST (23:04 UTC), and the explosion occurred two hours later at 19:10. It took about four hours for responders to extinguish the fire.
On October 31, 1963, a gas explosion occurred at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum in Indianapolis, United States, killing 81 people and injuring about 400 others. It was one of the worst disasters in the history of the state.
