Page 40 - Tropic Magazine Issue 25

TROPIC • HISTORY

Fireball in the sky

REGIONAL HISTORY
Tropic looks back at an explosion
that rocked the city of Cairns.

33 years ago this month, the biggest LPG
disaster in Australian history exploded
across the Cairns skyline. At about
3.30pm on a typical Monday in 1987, a
Liquefied Petroleum Gas storage unit at
the Cairns gas works in Portsmith caught
fire. Within minutes, thick plumes of
black smoke raced into the sky. The LPG
unit was carrying approximately 40,000
litres of LPG when it collapsed in the
immense heat. Then, the giant fireball
erupted in what is known as a Boiling
Liquid Expanding Vapour Explosion
(BLEVE). One person was killed in the
explosion, nearby resident 63-year old
Frank Schiller, while 27 other people were
injured, including three firefighters.
Just before the explosion, amateur
photographer Peter Brkic happened to
be on the roof of the Cairns telephone
exchange, where he was an engineer.
Every few months, he would snap pics
of the changing city skyline. This was, of
course, the age before digital cameras
and smartphones. And Mr Brkic only had
three shots left on the roll of film in his
trusty camera. Luckily, he had a spare roll
tied to his camera strap. “Suddenly there
was a big ball of flame … it mushroomed
up like an atomic bomb blast you see in
a movie,” he told the ABC. Greater safety
measures were introduced at all gas
plants across the nation as a result of the
Cairns explosion.

Our thanks to Martin Lee for supplying the
photographs taken by Peter Brkic.

40 • Tropic • Issue 25