The plant has been shut since last week following complaints of a gas leak.
Dozens of homes were evacuated and trains cancelled because of a gas leak in Portsmouth.
In 1984, a gas leak at the Union Carbide pesticide plant near Bhopal, India, killed nearly 4, 500 people.
The injured number more than 80, and the blast, thought to have been caused by a gas leak, also damaged homes nearby.
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It all stems from a gas leak at a chemical plant in Rouen, which is more than 60 miles north west of Paris.
Last August a gas leak at the Amuay refinery in western Venezuela led to an explosion and fire that burned for days and killed more than 40.
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Prohibition notices were served on the North West Hutton installation after inspectors went on board the platform, 300 miles north east of Aberdeen, to investigate a gas leak.
Mohammed Youssef, a pilot of another balloon which was in the air nearby at the time, told the Guardian newspaper that the fire started when it was 3m from the ground and was caused by a gas leak.
The chief of regional police said that the explosion has caused a separate gas leak in a building adjacent to the building that was the epicenter of the morning explosion.
Nearby houses were evacuated because of a subsequent gas leak, CNN affiliate WNDU reported.
Mr. Collins put in a gas-leak detector and consults his wife before eating leftovers.
Records showed the mains had consistently been classified as a low gas leak risk and there were no reported leaks within recent history that would have required repairs.
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Two years ago, residents in nearby Culver City evacuated their homes one night after a mysterious gas leak, prompting PXP to voluntarily shut down its operations until the county finishes an environmental review.
The company announced improved first-quarter refining margins and said it had made significant progress in efforts to stem a natural-gas leak on its Elgin field platform in the British sector of the North Sea.
One of the worst environmental accidents so far, at the Union Carbide factory in India where thousands of people were killed by a leak of poisonous gas in 1984, made companies everywhere think again about how to manage crises on such a scale.
The power plant has been shut down since this winter, when a small amount of radioactive gas escaped from a steam generator during a water leak.
Union Carbide, a chemicals firm, has a link to information on the deadly Bhopal gas leak in India on its home page, for example.
But a bigger worry is that the gas itself may leak.
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Used fuel that has been cooled in a spent fuel pool for at least five years can be put into a container called a cask and surrounded with inert gas, providing leak-tight containment, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The pressure in the capped-off well could blow a new hole in it, letting oil and gas leak out through the seabed.
Health and safety officials have been checking gas appliances inside the flat to trace a leak, and the apartment block has been evacuated while tests continue.
"The methane 'leak' claim just got a lot more difficult for opponents" of natural gas, noted Steve Everley, with Energy In Depth, an industry-funded group.
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