Residents, chemists and firefighters are raising concerns about prevention and emergency preparedness after 15,000 kilograms of lithium batteries inside a shipping container caught fire at the Port of Montreal on Monday.
“Around 6 p.m., I started smelling something chemical in my place,” said Lia Chauvel, who lives about two kilometres from the port. “Like at 7 p.m., I get a text from the city. I thought it was spam.”
The fire started at 2:40 p.m. About two hours later, the city issued a precautionary lockdown notice through landlines to some nearby residents. A reminder alert was sent at 6:51 p.m.
At 6:53 p.m., the Mercier—Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough posted a warning on Facebook, and the comment section quickly filled with residents saying they were never notified or didn’t see the post until much later.
Enforce shipping regulations.
Train firefighters and give them the tools they need to put out self oxidizing metal fires.
Stop making battery fires into a boogyman so oil and gas can say “look, we’re safer!”
I know people who had a work event near the port and never heard a thing. She did have irritated eyes in the evening and came back normal afterwards. I guess that might explain :/
We definitely need some good alert system for this shit, we will see more and more of those fires.
