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Comment by leonidasrup | Hacker News Reader

"There are three large tanks with a highly toxic chemical called methyl methacrylate, or MMA, used to make plastic, at the site in the 12000 block of Western Avenue in Garden Grove."

https://www.aol.com/news/know-gkn-aerospace-firm-center-1200...

"In terms of the acute toxicity of methyl methacrylate, the LD50 is 7–10 g/kg (oral, rat). It is an irritant to the eyes and can cause redness and pain"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methyl_methacrylate

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That actually doesn’t seem that toxic. Doesn’t seem like a carcinogen either. Obviously still bad, but at least we’re not talking about something on the tier of phenol or benzene here!

> benzene

Amazing how we are ok with it being in petrol, getting exposed every day, literally blowing exhaust in kids faces, yet someone found a trace of it in name-brand sunscreen and everyone lost their minds.

While benzene vapors are bad, we probably shouldn't tolerate very much benzene being in things that are rubbed onto the skin intentionally. Trace amounts as you say might not really matter though.

what is the toxicity of the partialy burnt smoke and byproducts? how BIG an explosion and fire? which fucking way will the wind be blowing when it pops? *please dont do disaster management unless you can run ALL the failure modes, and know you are missing something.

It’s been nearly a day - experts on disaster management for this kind of thing should be onsite now.

If they’re not, something’s failed and it ain’t the tank.

thinking about this a tiny bit more.... they dont have a way to just pump this stuff some where else, there may be no reverse functionality at all, just a linear assembly line, or that would have happened right away. and the tank could be ready to fail completly, making anyone right there, dead when it does. somebody is saying to drop a bomb on it and be done with it and that, is getting bumped, higher, and higher, and higher and the whole thing has to be explained, again, and again, and again

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