A 24-year-old man with burns to his face, chest and arms, and a 24-year-old woman were critically injured in an explosion and fire Tuesday morning at about 3 a.m. after smoking on a catwalk over oil storage tanks north of Van, Texas, along state Highway 110. Three of the six 400-barrel fiberglass storage tanks caught fire and exploded thus inducing a loud explosion boom that could have been heard in the surroundings. Both injured were taken to the East Texas Medical Center in Tyler before being transferred to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. None of the victims was working at the storage facility. It is believed that the victims were trespassing and smoking on a catwalk above the storage tanks. They were lucky, it seems that the tanks had very little crude oil in them at the time of the explosion. This might be related to the loud booms reports I received yesterday near Dallas, Texas – CBS (look at the movie inside)
