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MIDDLETOWN – Witnesses and authorities said as many as 100 people may have been injured and two killed when a massive explosion, which homeowners more than 10 miles away mistook for an earthquake, blew up a power plant being built on the Connecticut River in the southern section of Middletown at about 11 a.m. Sunday.
Medical rescue personnel said four of the 100 were injured, four critically, and two were dead at the site of the Kleen Energy Systems plant on River Road.
“There are bodies everywhere,” a witness said. Another witness said many victims may be buried in rubble.
Middletown deputy fire marshal Al Santostefano said at 1:15 p.m. there were “confirmed fatalities” but that he did not know who many. He said there were at least 50 construction workers on the site.
“It was a massive explosion” he said.
Santostefano said the explosion was related in some fashion to natural gas, but he did not know how.
Publically available information compiled by state regulators during the Kleen Energy plant approval process said that plant would operate on natural gas using a combined cycle turbine. Such turbines reuse waste heat produced the power generation process, increasing the plant’s efficiency.
The plant operators proposed that when sufficient supplies of natural gas were not available, the plant would operate on low sulfur fuel oil.
The project was proposed mostly for the benefit of power consumers in the Middletown area, according to the publicly available information.
Neighbors of the plant said as many as 100 employees may have been working there when the explosion took place. A witness said the explosion took place when workers switched on the plant’s energy generating systems during a test. Confirmed information about damage, injuries and the cause of the explosion was difficult to obtain.
Eddie Reilly, president of building trades council in Hartford, said Sunday there were more than 50 tradesmen on site Sunday morning.
Santostefano said there were multiple structures on the power plant site. He said it appears that the explosion took place in the rear of the largest building, which was entirely damaged.
“It’s possible that there might be people trapped in the rubble,” he said. “There was a lot of steel, from what I could see.”
Santostefano said rescue crews were “in search and rescue mode” by 1 p.m. Sunday and were trying to see “if there are any survivors”
Emergency rescue personnel poured into the site after the explosion. Helicopters were airlifting victims to area hospitals. Most victims were being taken to Middlesex Hospital in Middletown.
State police fire and explosive investigators were rushing to the scene at around noon Sunday, as well as state police urban rescue crews, which would search rubble for victims.
There were as many as 20 ambulances at the plant.
A resident of East Hampton almost directly across the river from the plant said he heard a load booming explosion at about 11 a.m. Immediately afterward his house was hit with a concussion that caused him to believe someone had driven an automobile into his home. The concussion interrupted services at a nearby East Hampton church, causing parishioners to speculate that the area had just experienced an earthquake.
Other witnesses said they felt the concussion as far away as North Branford and Durham.
A homeowner in Branford said “My entire house shook, followed by what sounded like an explosion.”
A witness looking at the destruction from across the river in Portland said the main plant building seemed to have been substantially leveled.
Emergency rescue authorities were briefing Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who opened the state’s emergency management center. There were at least 100 firefighters on the site at 1:30 p.m. and the fire caused by the explosion had been extinguished. Authorities said there was not further danger to the public.
Original article about “Middletown Explosion: Kleen Energy Middletown CT Explosion” is in LAtimes.com
Middletown Explosion: Kleen Energy Middletown CT Explosion
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