Explosions

I left home early for work today in order to arrive with enough time to relax with a coffee, read the paper, and change for work, but it didn't go as planned. I walked to the train station and my timing was perfect. I would arrive 4 minutes before the express Train, so there were only 3 stops til I arrived at work, instead of 7. But as I got closer to the station I saw many people standing around in groups, then I saw some firemen, then I saw the police. There was this pungent smell in the air but I didn't take any notice of it because the visuals were more important to my brain. I walked to the train station but there was police tape everywhere. The policewoman standing there told me it was closed and there were no trains or trams for the next 2 hours. I asked her what had happened and she replied, "can't you smell it?" It was the unmistakable smell of Natural Gas.

"The crash began when a truck suffered a tyre blow-out and pulled into the tunnel's left-hand lane. The tunnel does not have an emergency lane.

Two cars caught behind the truck tried to merge right. They were struck from behind by a semi-trailer, throwing one against the wall and one into the back of the stationary truck.

A third car was hit from the side by the same semi-trailer, then struck by a third truck."

"Explosions rocked the tunnel, motorists told of a huge wall of flames and temperatures soared above 1000 degrees. Police Assistant Commissioner Noel Ashby said some of the crash vehicles had turned into "balls of molten metal". Investigators had still not identified the make of some of the cars."

The crash happened in the Burnley tunnel which is about 7 kilometres from my station, so the amount of gas must have been immense to travel all that distance from the crash site.

However, it turns out that what I smelt was just a regular gas leak, and had nothing to do with the incident in the Burnley Tunnel. The gas leak just brought trains to a standstill and screwed up the public transport network during peak hour. A bit of a busy day for emergency services.

In other news, at 9:53pm this evening, as I crossed Victoria Parade and headed down Nicholson St, after a long 8.5 hour shift, some ripped guy in a tight white bonds top punched me in my left shoulder. I was walking along eating a wrap and feeling tired and the guy who was walking to the left of me, coming in my direction, just turned and smacked me in the arm. I turned and said, "what the...", then he turned and with huge fierce eyes, raised his arm to hit me again. I told him I'd just finished work and I just wanted to go home. I then turned and started walking, and thankfully he didn't do anything then continued to walk in the opposite direction. It was a bit strange, but the muggy windy weather does that to some people. They go crazy.