The Anacortes Refinery Disaster | 斷層線

Just after midnight on April 2, 2010, a massive fireball lit up the sky over Anacortes, 華盛頓.

A heat exchanger at a local oil refinery had ruptured, causing highly flammable gases to ignite.

Seven workers were inside the refinery’s unit when it exploded. Three of them died instantly; the other four died later from their injuries.

What happened that night and the months and years since has largely been out of the public eye.

State and federal investigators concluded that the refinery’s owner, the Tesoro Corporation, had ignored signs of deterioration and other safety hazards that, if dealt with, could have prevented any loss of life.

“The equipment there we found had been weakened by nearly 40 years of exposure to extreme chemical and physical stresses that resulted in cracks in the metal that could have been discovered in our judgment with proper testing and required testing that had not been done in more than 10 年,” says Michael Silverstein, who oversaw the investigation into the explosion for Washington state’s Labor and Industries Department.

It was the single largest industrial accident in the state of Washington ever. But the company is still refusing to pay out any penalties, insisting it didn’t do anything wrong.

In an exclusive investigation, produced in collaboration with The Center for Public Integrity, Fault Lines reports on the aftermath of the Anacortes explosion, and ongoing efforts by Tesoro to avoid any blame.

Subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribe
Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/AJEnglish
Find us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera
Check our website: http://www.aljazeera.com/