Around 50,000 people have been ordered to leave their homes in the area while firefighters sprayed the tank with water hoses to cool it down and prevent it from exploding. There is no timeline for when they will be able to return home. Governor Gavin Newsom has also declared a state of emergency for the county.
The tank, at GKN Aerospace in Garden Grove, contains the chemical methyl methacrylate, used to make plastic.
Authorities first responded to GKN Aerospace, about 40 miles south of downtown Los Angeles, on Thursday
The methyl methacrylate inside the tank could irritate people’s eyes and skin, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and can lead to respiratory issues like chest tightness, coughing and wheezing.
By Sunday morning, though, OCFA Interim Chief TJ McGovern said that emergency crews late Saturday night found a pressure-relieving crack in the tank, putting relief efforts on a “new trajectory”.
“Right now, this is an emergency response. This isn’t yet an environmental response, and the scale of that environmental response will be determined based off of what happens when that tank fails,” he added.
Lawsuit filed against GKN
“We continue to monitor the condition of the affected material and are working round the clock to mitigate the risk of a leak,” the company said. “We are acutely aware of the uncertainty this incident is causing and sincerely apologise for the ongoing disruption to the local community.”
“There is no good outcome here for the people who live nearby,” the lawyers for the residents wrote in a statement. “In the best-case scenario, a slow, controlled leak still forces residents out of their homes for an indefinite period, disrupting families, businesses, and daily life.”
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer launched a probe into GKN on Saturday, promising to hold the company “accountable.”
“I am scratching my head, asking a question I think everybody is asking: How in the world could this entity ... a multi-million dollar company that's responsible for this kind of manufacturing using volatile chemicals, not have any redundancy or backup systems for purposes of cooling?”
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