Summary
On 21 August 1991, at the Anchor Tank facility, St. Elmo’s fire ignited one of the storage tanks, resulting in the Coode Island explosion. About 8.5 million litres of organic compounds burned including acrylonitrile and benzene, creating a toxic cloud over nearby residential suburbs, which was dispersed by strong winds. The ignition spread between tanks through a common vent system, nitrogen blanketing had been considered unnecessary when the tanks were designed, and the common vent system was installed as a later modification to allow recovery of fumes for environmental purposes.
Key Learnings / Issues
- The facility is located only a few kilometres from Melbourne’s CBD and even closer to residential areas.
- The incident was substantially over later in the day but flared up again the following day.
- The propagation was found to be due to passage of fire through the interconnecting vapour recovery system pipework.
- Changes were recommended to regulation and the corresponding legislation.
- Damage and clean-up costs were later assessed at between $20 and $35 million. The owners held an insurance cover of $20 million.
Quote
“The fire began after a brief and violent storm, a reliable witness reports an “act of god”.”
Clive Hale (ABC Newsreader)