UPTON, N.Y., Oct. 14 (UPI) -- Officials say there's no risk to the public from a propane blast at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, which houses a particle accelerator.
The Monday night explosion happened at a drinking water pump station about 1/4 mile from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, and never threatened the public or the scientific work on particle physics being conducted at the Upton, N.Y., lab, Newsday reported.
The collider is used by scientists trying to discern the physical properties of the universe in the first microseconds after its creation in the "big bang." But Monday's bang came in the form of an explosion so loud it could be heard by many city residents and so powerful it leveled a 680-square-foot concrete block pump building, the newspaper said.
Brookhaven lab officials said in a statement that local, county and U.S. Department of Energy officials had been notified "about the emergency." They added there was no evidence the propane explosion was "a malicious act," Newsday reported.
