Eight injured after Florida explosions

@mariaaaguzman via Twitter

A Twitter picture of the propane gas plant explosions that left eight injured, four critically.

Eight people were injured as a series of explosions rocked a central Florida propane gas plant on Monday night, sending local residents who believed "bombs are going off" into a panic.

Four people were critically injured, but all the workers at the Blue Rhino propane plant in Tavares, Fla., were accounted for early Tuesday.

"People from very far away and in towns six, seven, eight, 10 miles from here were reporting feeling their homes shaking," John Herrell of the Lake County Sheriff's Office?told ABCNews.com.

Three workers were listed in critical condition at Orlando Regional Medical Center early Tuesday, while one person injured in the explosion was in critical condition at the University of Florida Health Shands Hospital. Other injured workers drove themselves to hospitals.

The plant, located northwest of Orlando, refilled propane tanks usually used for barbecues and other uses. A crew of 24 to 26 people was working the overnight shift when the blasts happened around 11 p.m.

"It sounds like bombs are going off," Norma Haygood told WESH in Orlando.

The tanks at the plant hold 90,000 gallons of propane each, but did not ignite the fire, Tavares Fire Chief Richard Keith said Tuesday morning.

"We don't think there was any act of sabotage or anything like that," Keith told the Orlando Sentinel. "It was probably a human or equipment error."

Video footage on WESH?showed raging fires following the explosions. Residents who were told to leave their homes as a precaution were later allowed to return.

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"You could definitely see the fire from across the lake," Ashley McCormick of Mount Dora told ABC. "It was humongous even from seven miles away. You could hear the explosions, just one after another and then after it would explode, a fireball would shoot up into the sky."

"It was like a car had run into my house, is what I thought had happened," said?Marni Whitehead, who lives less than a mile from the plant.

She ran outside and saw the explosions.

"We knew right away it was the plant, the propane plant," Whitehead said. "After that, it was just sort of panic. And it was just boom after boom after boom."

"I have heard tons of booms for at least 30 minutes," Mount Dora's Blake Cottle told ABC affiliate WFTV-TV.

Officials believe the fire was contained,?but while reporters were examining the facility on Tuesday morning, firefighters found burning plastic tank caps in a gigantic container, according to the Sentinel.

Blue Rhino, which was built in 2004 and employs fewer than 50 people, is a subsidiary of Kansas-based Ferrellgas.

"We know very little so far. It's very early, it's very preliminary," a Ferrellgas spokesman told the Sentinel.

"It was a tremendous fire," Keith said Tuesday morning. "We still have a lot of work to do."

With News Wire Services

dboroff@nydailynews.com

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/nydnrss/news/~3/q4VIeXGaqrA/story01.htm

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