Oil flames after crash

Press, 5 April 1983, Page 4

Oil flames after crash

NZPA St Louis Four barges loaded with crude oil crashed into two bridges over the Mississippi River yesterday. Two of the barges exploded, unleashing a stream of flaming oil that set alight brush and grain barges along the St Louis waterfront. An oil slick stretched skm down the river. The barges first rammed the Poplar Street bridge, and then one of Hie four hit the McArthur bridge, a few hundred metres downstream. Car and truck traffic on the Poplar Street bridge and rail traffic on the McArthur bridge were not affected. “It is a major oil spill in a metropolitan area,” said a Coast Guard Lieutenant, Chris Otto, who warned that the spill could have “awful consequences” for the environment One person was injured when one barge drifted out of control and snaked a chemical pipeline tflft ex-

One person was injured when one barge drifted out of control and snaked a chemical pipeline tflft ex-

tended into the river. The man was exposed to a hazardous gas called monochlorobenzene. Two of the barges caught fire, causing an eerie red glow that lit up the night sky for hours as they burned about 500 metres downstream from St Louis. Burning oil stretched across the river, and brush fires broke out along the shore. At least seven fires were burning at one time, two of them on grain barges, but they were brought under control. One of the barges sank, leaking oil from the river bottom. A Coast Guard strike team experienced in handling oil spills was called in to raise the sunken barge. The city draws its drinking water upstream from the bridge. Lieutenant Otto said he did not know if water supplies for cities downstream from the spill would be affected.