# French beach explosion.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-beach-explosion/149392
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 18, 2003, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-beach-explosion/149392 "2003-01-18T03:21:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Weeks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weeks)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2003, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-beach-explosion/149392/1 "2003-01-18T03:21:30Z")
Does anybody have a cite for an explosion that occured on a beach in France about ten years ago?
The explosion, if memory serves, was started by a gas/propane(?) truck that blew up and ignited beachgoers gas stoves etc. Certainly I didn’t dream this up once upon a time:confused:
Appearantly, there was some kind of chain reaction that killed a number of people.
Google search for France+truck+gas+explosion+beach ( and all permutations), turned up bupkis.
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### Author:  [@Weeks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weeks)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2003, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-beach-explosion/149392/2 "2003-01-18T12:18:32Z")
OK…Does anyone even remember it?
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### Author:  [@Random](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Random)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2003, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-beach-explosion/149392/3 "2003-01-18T13:57:07Z")
Vague memory here. Sure it wasn’t Spain or one of the Mediterranean islands?
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### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2003, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-beach-explosion/149392/4 "2003-01-18T14:30:35Z")
It ws in the Med coast of Spain. Look for Alfaques
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### Author:  [@Random](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Random)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2003, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-beach-explosion/149392/5 "2003-01-18T14:38:06Z")
[http://my.ohio.voyager.net/~dionisio/history.html](http://my.ohio.voyager.net/~dionisio/history.html)
Spain, 1978.
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### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2003, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-beach-explosion/149392/6 "2003-01-18T14:46:58Z")
11 july 1978: 180 dead and over 600 injured when a truck carrying propylene catches fire and explodes on the road near a camping site in Los Alfaques, Tarragona, Spain.
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### Author:  [@raygirvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raygirvan)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2003, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-beach-explosion/149392/7 "2003-01-18T16:35:39Z")
_The explosion … started by a gas/propane(?) truck that blew up and ignited beachgoers gas stoves etc … Apparently, there was some kind of chain reaction_.
I remember this now. The reason it was so destructive is that was a classic example of a [BLEVE](http://www.nfpa.org/Research/FireInvestigation/AlertBulletins/BLEVE/bleve.asp) (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapour Explosion). It’s a very nasty type of fire where inflammable liquid in a sealed container gets heated by an external fire, until part of it flashes into vapour and instantly bursts the container, spreading the remaining hot liquid as an atomised mist, which ignites as a fireball (in effect not unlike a fuel-air bomb).
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### Author:  [@\_etalhea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_etalhea)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2003, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-beach-explosion/149392/8 "2003-01-18T16:54:42Z")
Ewww, and the container makes for some nice pre-heated shrapnel that way too. Nasty. Not to mention flying truck parts.