Pakistan being Pakistani - people die in tanker explosion

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People in the US have no clue how poor a good portion of the world is. But I agree with you.

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honestly, it sounds like some shite that would happen here if the opportunity presented itself

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which exploded after someone apparently lit a cigarette

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which exploded after someone apparently lit a cigarette

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This is impossible according to the OT.

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Though the incident was initially described as an explosion, Alabama State Fire Marshal Scott Pilgreen said Tuesday that it is better characterized as a flash fire, not an explosion. A flash fire is a sudden, intense fire caused by ignition of a mixture of air and a dispersed flammable substance such as a solid, flammable or combustible liquid, or a flammable gas.


"The sound and effects of a flash fire can mimic an explosion, but I don't know if explosion is the term I would use,'' Pilgreen said

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We poured a very small amount of gasoline in an aluminum pie pan or slightly deeper cake pan and placed it in the middle of a concrete slab. The pie and cake pans were chosen because they allowed the gasoline to spread out into a very shallow puddle the way it would if spilled on the ground. It also pretty much guaranteed that the vapors at some point above the pan would mix enough with air to form an ignitable mixture.

We lit a cigarette and tossed it into the pan. The cigarette paper wicked up gasoline and quenched the glowing tip without igniting anything (see Figure 4). We tossed in more lit cigarettes. We tried lighting gasoline soaked paper towels. We used long tongs for reaching far away objects to hold glowing cigarettes over the pan at various heights. More than once we placed several glowing cigarettes in the pan (see Figure 5). Our record was 40 glowing cigarettes at one time. In most cases, we allowed the glowing cigarettes to smolder until they went out.

Various experiments were conducted at different times of the day with different air temperatures and humidity. A total of 223 cigarettes of 11 different types were eventually used all without ever igniting the gasoline. Yet, at the end of each experimental session the gasoline was successfully lit using a single match attached to a long pole (see figures 6 and 7). The gasoline would typically ignite just before the match touched it. This indicated that there was an ignitable mixture above the surface of the gasoline. Numerous lit cigarettes were in this region for significant periods of time.

We knew that puffing a cigarette would increase the tip's temperature substantially and would help mix vapor and air together. We became convinced that puffing a cigarette over the gasoline would cause it to ignite. To test it, we built a simple smoking apparatus which could draw air through the cigarette or push it backwards out the tip.

We tested the apparatus repeatedly in both modes without getting ignition. During a test a cigarette was consumed rapidly and glowed brightly. Often sparks shot or fell off the cigarette. They were smoked at various levels above the gasoline to insure that at least part of the time they were in a region with an ignitable mixture. Surprisingly, even when a cigarette was puffed it didn't ignite the gasoline.

As mentioned earlier, we stand firm that under the right circumstances cigarettes can ignite gasoline, however, tossing a lit cigarette into a puddle of gasoline, as is done in many movies, is not a reliable way to do it.

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