Chlorine gas horror leak at Apple data center puts five in hospital A chlorine gas leak at an Apple data center has landed five people in hospital. Emergency crews received a call about 2pm local time from the Apple facility on Startown Road, in Maiden, North Carolina. Local news helicopters captured footage of people being given medical attention and oxygen masks outside the facility. The …
I'll guess it was chlorine dioxide that decomposed. It's a pretty common treatment for keeping cooling towers clean and for drinking water. The downside is that once out of solution it doesn't take much for it to decompose so it's likely it was a relatively concentrated store as the it only takes a very little to be effective.
t's likely it was a relatively concentrated store as the it only takes a very little to be effective."
At the water treatment plant that I worked at, we received concentrated chlorine solution, pumped into holding tanks stored outside within a chainlink area, where is was diluted to 5% in order not to be considered a hazardous material. It was effective and relatively safe then. Plus, when properly diluted, it tends to gas less.
From Google's skynet pics it looks like the solar array is actually across the street. At the moment it looks like the images are being updated because the landscape changes radically depending on zoom level. Bing maps knows nothing about it.
Add gaseous ammonia to that list; as soon as it touches a wet part of you it hydrolyses to ammonium hydroxide. It'll kill you in under a minute by stripping the flesh out of your lungs. It's also a lot easier to get hold of and store than fluorine.
Then there's NOx where you can get a fatal exposure and not even notice till 8 hours afterwards.
Probably find it was just a stupid mistake by a cleaner mixing two different bleaches.....it takes little to create chlorine gas that way.
I feel pity for those involved....... I know just how bad it feels. I got a lung full of pure chlorine 40 years ago (a gas jar broke) and my breathing is still not right now. It really does hurt when it happens.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
