Tanker Truck

The tanker truck that exploded on Interstate 95 Tuesday was moving erratically, and its load of gasoline was shifting violently, before the truck plunged rear-end-first from an overpass onto the highway, according to investigators and witnesses interviewed by police. Police made preliminary identifications yesterday of three of the four people killed in the crash, using dental records, personal effects found at the scene and vehicle identification numbers that survived the inferno. The victims' names were not released pending confirmation.

A 27-year-old truck driver from Pennsylvania was seriously burned yesterday when his gasoline tanker veered off Westminster Pike, overturned and burst into flames, spewing more than 7,000 gallons of blazing gasoline for 300 feet along a drainage ditch.The heat from the crash was so intense it melted vinyl siding on one house about 75 feet from the highway. The inhabitants, however, escaped unharmed.Baltimore County hazardous materials units immediately built makeshift dikes to prevent the gasoline from draining down the slope into a tributary of Liberty Reservoir while firefighters smothered the blaze with foam.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A Miami-bound Amtrak passenger train ripped through a gasoline truck trapped on the tracks yesterday afternoon, igniting fireballs that killed six people.The flames engulfed eight vehicles waiting at the crossing, killing the truck driver, three people in a van and two in separate cars. All 138 people on the train survived, although at least six were injured."Everything was just a ball of flame. The fireball had to be 150, 200 feet high. I saw a B-52 go down in Vietnam.

Northbound and southbound lanes of Interstate 95 in White Marsh were shut down yesterday afternoon after a fuel-tank truck carrying waste oil erupted in flames and spilled about 1,000 gallons of used waste oil onto the side of the highway, Maryland State Police and environmental officials said. No one was injured, but traffic was backed up for about eight miles in each direction from about 2:15 p.m. to about 4:45 p.m., when all but one lane southbound was reopened, said Lt. Bud Frank, a state police spokesman.

A Randallstown shopping center and neighboring businesses were ordered evacuated today by Baltimore County police after a tanker truck transporting chlorine began leaking fumes.A county police officer said the Liberty Court Shopping Center, at Liberty Road and Old Court Road, and shops across the street were evacuated. Only a small amount of fumes are believed to have escaped before the leak was repaired. No injuries were reported. The truck was carrying 200 gallons of chlorine.

The driver of a tanker truck carrying 9,000 gallons of gasoline died yesterday when the truck crashed and overturned in Cherry Hill, bursting into flames that shot 150 feet into the air, officials said. The Fleet Transit tractor-trailer was traveling west in the 3300 block of Waterview Ave. about 5 a.m. when it failed to negotiate a curve. The truck hit a curb, overturned and struck a utility pole, said Agent Martin Bartness, a police spokesman. The tank ruptured and the fuel exploded, Bartness said.

Two people were injured when a tanker truck overturned in northern Baltimore County, according to the Baltimore County Fire Department. County firefighters responded at 8:20 a.m. to the 3600 block of Blemheim Road in Phoenix, a spokeswoman said. The tanker was delivering heating oil to a house, and firefighters found the truck on its side leaking oil. Hazardous material crews were called, and the Maryland Department of the Environment was contacted to stop the leak. Two patients were taken to Sinai Hospital.

25 years agoThe County Council passed the zoning map for northeastern Anne Arundel with 97 amendments, greatly expanding commercial and industrially zoned areas and violating the county marina zoning law in the process. -- The Sun, Oct. 3, 1972.A tanker truck carrying 7,800 gallons of gasoline caught fire and exploded after colliding with a small foreign car on Belle Grove Road. Heat broke the overpass and it will be closed to traffic for six months. -- The Sun, Oct. 4, 1972.Paul I. Hall, 68, blind and confined to a wheelchair, died yesterday in a fire which swept through his apartment in Harbour House in Annapolis, a public housing project.

The second annual After Dark HorrorFest landed in theaters this weekend with a national splatter. The six-day, eight-film festival -- which began Friday and runs until Nov. 18 -- will bring its collective charms (which include cannibals, Mexican cult killers, spooks, were-rats, a raging mystery virus and enough fake blood to fill a tanker truck) to about 300 U.S. screens. That makes HorrorFest (aka "8 Films to Die For") a world-class festival -- a sort of super-sized Sundance for sadism.

A tanker truck overturned yesterday on a ramp leading from southbound Interstate 95 to eastbound Route 198 in Laurel, spilling gasoline onto the roadway and delaying traffic for several hours while work crews cleaned up the spill. State police Sgt. Herman Bethel of the College Park barracks said the tanker's driver, whose name was not released, suffered minor injuries and was treated at Prince George's Hospital Center in Cheverly. Bethel said the tanker was on the ramp about 3:25 p.m. when for an unknown reason the rig left the roadway and fell onto its right side.