By: Adam D. Young; Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
 |
| Stephen Spillman |
The second chemical explosion in two weeks at Texas Tech prompted campus officials to evacuate an engineering building late Thursday.
Nobody was injured or contaminated after what Tech spokesman Chris Cook called a small explosion about 7:15 p.m. in a laboratory in the Engineering and Technology Lab off the school’s engineering key at Canton Avenue and Glenna Goodacre Boulevard.
Cook said nobody was in the lab when nitric acid and an unknown waste product somehow combined to produce the explosion. A student responding to the noise opened the lab’s door and recognized the smell of nitric acid, Cook said. “They evacuated the building immediately upon realizing what it was,” he said. About six people were in the building during the explosion.
First responders arrived to clear the building. Initially, authorities were concerned by reports of a janitor remaining in one of the rooms. Cook said the janitor was in a different building and was not injured. Lubbock Fire Department hazardous materials crews spent several hours clearing explosion residue from the building and securing the lab.
On Oct. 14, a combination of about one quart of nitric acid and another chemical produced a small explosion in a lab in Tech’s Chemistry Building. Nobody was injured in that incident. Cook said the two explosions were unrelated and come after the university made efforts to improve lab safety following a January 2010 Chemistry Building lab explosion that left a 29-year-old graduate student critically injured with burns to his hands and face. The Jan. 7 explosion prompted a U.S. Chemical Safety Board investigation.
“Any of these accidents are unfortunate,” he said. “Are we concerned? It’s always a concern when an incident like this happens.”
Tech’s department of environmental health and safety performed a study of chemistry laboratories in the two months following the accident and found 1,660 deficiencies in which practices were not in accordance with university chemical safety procedures, Tech’s Vice President for Research Taylor Eighmy told The Avalanche-Journal last week.
Cook said the department will investigate Thursday’s explosion.
The original article can be found HERE.
