Johannesburg: Video captures moment suspected gas explosion threw buses into air | Hacker News Reader

Johannesburg: Video captures moment suspected gas explosion threw buses into air

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38 pointscsomar13 comments

The way the whole street went up in a line like that, I bet it was a sewer gas explosion.

Edit for the [dead]: sewer gas isn't gasoline in the sewer. Sewage produces hydrogen sulfide, an explosive gas. There are many videos online of sewers blowing up after people drop lit cigarettes into sewers and in those videos the street is often blown apart like is shown in the OP video.

Johannesburg has municipal natural gas lines. They’re more likely to be the culprit here than sewage.

Given how incompetently utilities are run in South Africa, a gas leak in a municipal line would surprise me not at all.

Natural gas lines are very unlikely to explode on their own. Unless something extremely serious has gone wrong, they only contain methane, without oxygen, so even if they're cut and ignited all you'll get is a localized fire where the leak is.

Much more likely that natural gas leaked into an existing void containing air... such as a sewer line.

Methane explosion. If it was LPG gas there would have been a flame. Plus there are no gas lines in that particular block.

It's not "sewer gas".

It would be natural gas that leaked in.

Normally it would not be the sewer since it should be sealed, unlike storm water, but many cities still mix sewer and stormwater. You can see the pipe is actually square in some pics, which is not normally sewage in developed places.

Gasoline in the sewer occasionally happens, but there's no reason to think that happened here.

I'm surprised no terrorists have tried gasoline in the sewer. Or maybe they have and it doesn't work and just like lazy universities they don't write up the null hypothesis.

How coincidental. Just finished rewatching Wag the Dog movie.

I'm fascinated by the woman who seems to be pacing back and forth rather than do anything productive to help people or get to safety. I wonder if I would have the clarity of mind in that moment or if I would melt down also. It's moments like this that make me wish I had followed some of my early career options and became an EMT or similar. Then, I would know how I would actually react rather than just being an armchair commentator.

You can always take a class from an org like Stop the Bleed or NOLS that trains regular people. We can’t predict how we’ll react in emergencies we haven’t drilled, but I bet even a little bit of training goes a long way.

this is very, very true. I found out long ago that I have a favorable reaction of calm clarity and default to logic instead of freezing or overreacting, and I also found out that without training I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. I would much rather be hyperventilating and shaking but have a clear training-based plan of action than to calmly realize I'm useless at the moment. I still do my best, but I think people overvalue clear thinking in the moment.

"I've never had to knock on wood, but I know someone who has.

Which makes me wonder if I could.

It makes me wonder if I've never had to knock on wood.

And I'm glad I haven't yet because I'm sure it isn't good,

That's the impression that I get." - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

I have, and it's not. At least I know that in the moment, I run towards the fire rather than away from it.

You could become a volunteer EMT.

Just know what you’re getting into. A friend of mine was an EMT and studied and tested to become a Paramedic.

He did that for two years and left the field completely, and won’t talk about it.

Paramedics are the real frontline of trauma and human tragedy, and it can take a special kind of person to work and cope with that kind of environment.

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