or maybe it was Jan 1, 19100!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/state/vic/metvic-2jan2000-17.htm

Coupling routine on a liquid fuel system failed. Oops.

-- Anonymous, January 02, 2000

Answers

The fire at the power plant article is gone. I searched everywhere in the website for it; they've pulled it. This is Sooooo frustrating. And now, the Gambia story which was reported as ...banking down, electricity down, water down, transportaion down all due to Y2K, has been changed to "everything is fine now and it wasn't Y2K afterall. Give me a break!

-- Anonymous, January 02, 2000

Power station ablaze in Vic's La Trobe Valley

Victorian firefighters are battling large fireballs coming from a blaze at the Hazelwood Power Station in the La Trobe Valley in Gippsland, south-east of Melbourne.

The fire broke out in a power generator shortly before 8:00am AEDT after a liquid coupling failed on the conveyor system.

The company has shut down two of its eight generators as a safety precautions.

Peter Philp from the Country Fire Authority (CFA) says the fire started when oil sprayed over a coal bunker and caught alight.

"They're encountering large fireballs, they're blowing across the floor of the bunker," he said.

"Initially they drove back CFA firefighters because they were so large. They're now regrouping but they have contained one bunker which is the north-south bunker but the fire is still burning in the centre bunker."

Sunday 2 January, 2000

12:57pm AEDT

There have been 3 updates on the fire, and the story has now been archived. There have also been a number of incorrect statements made by the media which have been quickly jumped on as indications of it being a potential Y2k failure.

First off, The Hazelwood Power station is Coal fired, not liquid fuel fired. Have a look at a photo of Hazelwood Power station . You can see the conveyor system leading from the coal pits into the crusher plant, and from there into the station.

Crushed coal or pulverised fuel (PV) is an extremely inflamable fine powder. Because of this, the conveyor belts are often driven by fluid drives rather than electric motors.

Add hot oil mist escaping under high pressure from a fluid coupling to the PV, and there is an immediate recipe for an explosion and fire. The cause of the the initial ignition would just be pure speculation, but in summer tepmeratures it would not take much.

It would be very difficult to assign this disaster to Y2K, it certainly appears to be a purely mechanical fault.

-- Anonymous, January 03, 2000