Authorities in Orange county, California have ordered the evacuation of 40,000 people over concerns about a chemical leak that threatened to spill or explode.
The problem arose on Thursday at a facility owned by GKN Aerospace in the town of Garden Grove, where a storage tank holding methyl methacrylate began off-gassing and threatened to fail. The chemical, which is highly flammable, is used to fabricate resins and plastics.
Local authorities originally responded to the incident with a hazmat team on Thursday, ordering local residents to evacuate. They lifted the order later that day, but the problem worsened due to “damage to a valve on the tank” that “created additional operational challenges, preventing complete mitigation”, Garden Grove authorities wrote in an evacuation order.
By Friday, new evacuation orders had expanded to residents in six cities.
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