A spill of ammonia from a tanker has the potential to kill or injure many hundreds of people if it occurs in a high-density inhabited area, and the effects can spread as far as four kilometres, according to research from Australia. Similarly, the fireball from an explosion of a tanker of LPG is lethal within 350 metres, and will smash all windows inside half a kilometre.
In November 2000, a petrol tanker whose brakes had failed ran into a line of stopped cars near Lagos, Nigeria, and exploded, killing at least 96 people in a blaze that engulfed everything within a 500-metre radius.
Earlier this month, a tanker leaving a freeway in Miami went out of control and blew up in the parking lot of a prison. Fortunately, the 27 vehicles destroyed in the car park were unoccupied. The tanker driver died.
Last August, a tanker carrying 36,000 litres of petrol crashed in front of a shopping strip in south Sydney, Australia. The fuel was ignited by fallen power lines, and the explosion and fire destroyed many cars, four shops and a number of residences. The driver escaped before the explosion.
In February 1999, a diesel tanker travelling in Yorkshire was set ablaze and destroyed by a tyre fire, closing the M62 for four hours. Nobody was hurt.
In August 1998, 1,000 gallons of petrol spilled when a tanker overturned on a roundabout in Leeds. Fortunately firemen managed to cover it in foam before any ignition. A similar incident happened in 1995 in Avon. Again, the use of a special foam prevented an explosion.