Fuel tanker explosion causes panic and massive damage in Rio de Janeiro

Dozens of residents of Rua Gonzaga Bastos, in the famous neighborhood of Vila Isabel, in the north of the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, began this Saturday trying to repair the damage caused the day before when a fuel tanker exploded in the middle of the street, which caused panic throughout the region, but did not injure anyone, as the fuel has just been unloaded.

Despite the fact that it was practically empty, with only the remains of dangerous fuel and a high concentration of gases, the explosion of the tanker caused damage in a radius of hundreds of meters around the site of the disaster, in the area of ​​Boulevard 28 de Centembro.

An extremely large explosion, heard over a wide area, occurred on Friday morning when the top of a heavy vehicle accidentally touched one of the high-voltage public lighting cables, which on this road, as in almost all major Brazilian cities, are located at a very low altitude.

A spark from the collision of a truck with a wire exploded the gases concentrated inside the tank of the car, which, by a stroke of luck, had just unloaded 30,000 liters of gasoline at a station in Barra da Tijuca, an area in the west of capital fluminense, thus avoiding , which could have become a great human tragedy.

The heavy tank cap of the truck flew more than 100 meters, also fortunately not hitting anyone, but pieces of glass and window structures were thrown out and broken by the force of the explosion in dozens of houses along the street and in many branches of trees and trees. other debris fell on those on the road, and they fled desperately, trying to protect themselves, at first not understanding exactly what was happening, but without seriously injuring anyone.

An armored jeep following the truck had its windshield torn off and smashed, and the driver, a prominent doctor with links to the football club, was pinned tightly in his seat, but again in a series of minor incidents. It was a great luck that he was not injured, as was the driver of the car following him, who was also hit by debris from the truck’s tank.

At the time of the explosion, several people were walking along the street next to the truck, including an elderly woman with limited mobility who was being helped by another woman. Fortunately, neither of them experienced anything other than indescribable fear, since in this case, too, debris flew towards them, but fell far away.

On Saturday morning, the damage was still clearly visible on Gonzaga Bastos Street and, as usual, between the companies involved – the oil company that owns the fuel, the transport company that owns the truck, and the energy concessionaire that installed the high live wires – every resident and business owner tried to restore what was destroyed on their property.

There are records of glass and window frames made of aluminum and even iron breaking at a distance of up to 300 meters from the explosion site, and in some apartments in nearby buildings, residents even suffered losses due to damage to items inside their own homes.