Explosion at Vancouver Christmas Market
Posted November 24, 2010 12:27 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – One person has been injured after a propane tank blew up at the Vancouver Christmas Market outside the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in downtown Vancouver.
The city says a contractor was drilling a hole through the wall of one of the huts, and unknowingly drilled right into the side of a propane tank. The leaked gas eventually ignited, sending a fireball 15 feet into the sky.
One woman had to be taken to hospital after she was injured running away from the fire.
A BCIT Journalism student Gene Law was at the market doing an interview about ornaments. He says his story changed when he heard an explosion and people started screaming. “Ten to twenty metres away… it exploded, there was a big orange fireball. People were screaming, ‘Get out… get as far away as you can’ because there were 100 pound propane tanks in there.”
Luckily none of those tanks exploded, but four temporary huts have been damaged.
Organizers say the market won’t re-open until early next week.
