Dammit I want an explosion.

[waterstrider]

A gas station is about fifty feet away from the epicentre of a 5.8 earthquake. Does it explode? How can I make this bloody gas station explode?

Comments

[anonymous]

maybe the shaking could make someone drop their cigarette ;)

[feath]

The shock wave cracks the gas drum, which seeps gas out.
1) someone throws a lit cigarette into it.
2) someone switches on a light, which creates a spark, which ignites the gas.
3) someone already on fire stumbles into the pool of gas.
4) *really reaching* the gas flows toward some downed, and sparking, electricity lines...
5) *starting to sweat* Lightening strikes the pool of explanding gas...

[feath]

Oh, and 5.8 really isn't much. I'd make it a 7.+ and get a good shake going on.

[theguindo]

Actually I don't think the power lines thing is too unbelievable. A quake could definitely down some lines.

[zellieh]

Remember that the gas drum would always have some air space in it, so as well as the liquid petroleum, you have vapour, which is *very* explosive. The possibility of a gaseous vapour leak is the real reason you're told to switch your engine off, and not smoke, etc.

[rheakurokawa]

5,8 isn't really much. a 7+ earthquake is a really big quake, a lot of shaking, usually 1 or 2 replicas of lesser magnitude following. 1977 brought a big quake pf 7,2 to Romania, that destroyed half of Bucharest. In seismology every decimal increases the magnitude, so a 7,2 quake is 2 times stronger than a 7 one. Or something similar. I wasn't born back then, but i had people tell me they were literally lifted into the air for a second as the force was vertical. If you try this at home and put a light object on a table then suddenly hit the table from underneath you will see the object jump a little. That's what happened then. Imagine that it shakes like that for almost a minute --> cars will derail. Besides people may have trouble controlling the cars since people might run (as they panic).

Because of this the most plausible thing would be a car crashing into the gas tanks, me thinks.

[rahalia_cat]

Any kind of spark would ignite petrol vapour, even a mobile phone going off in the nearby vicinity would do it, which is why you always see notices at petrol stations asking you not to use your phone. The massive blasts at the Buncefield fuel depot in the UK last year were probably caused by a lorry driver flicking his engine cutout switch, which ignited fuel vapour. I should think that in your scenario, a quake of any magnitude would probably rupture the underground fuel storage tanks and/or the lines leading from those tanks. Someone could drop a metal car key, striking a minute spark; someone's phone could ring; anything could happen along those lines. It doesn't have to be anything major.

[telophase]

The cell phone thing is an urban legend - there's been no substantiated reports of it happening. Snopes.com report.

[rahalia_cat]

Thank you. I stand corrected.

[ellixis]

Mythbusters addressed that one too. They tried their damndest to get an explosion under any kind of faintly reasonable circumstances, and totally failed.

Then they blew stuff up anyway.