An electrical extension cord might have provided the spark that ignited a propane-filled shipping container to explode on a Saanich construction site Friday morning hurling debris, crumpling metal containers and shattering the windows of nearby homes and vehicles.
Searidge Properties superintendent Brad Shankland was opening the Midtown Park condominium construction site at 935 Cloverdale Ave., at Inverness Road, at about 6:25 a.m..Friday when the blast occurred. There were five shipping containers on the site. Shankland had just unlocked one container and was inside it, when the locked container next to it exploded.
The blast blew out both ends of the container, hurtled the roof 15 metres and shot one of the doors about 100 metres across the site, over Inverness Road and into Rutledge park. The blast also damaged nearby residences and vehicles and was heard and felt seven kilometres away on Clover Point in Victoria.
Shankland was taken to Victoria General Hospital with minor injuries and released.
The large steel shipping container that blew up was being used by Searidge Properties as a makeshift office for some workers on site. Stored inside was a 20lb barbecue propane tank, police said.
In his report, Fire Prevention Capt. Rich Pala says investigators believe the barbecue propane tank was "inadvertently" left on overnight and was leaking inside the locked shipping container. A small pop machine plugged into an extension cord "from the outside is being considered as a possible ignition source," the report says.
Police and fire officials and Worksafe B.C. continue to investigate.
As a result of the blast, windows were blown out of a condominium that backs onto the construction site. Those windows have since been replaced.
