Driver dies after trailer of chemicals explodes in Bruce Highway crash

Police have confirmed one of the drivers in the fiery crash on the Bruce Highway Friday morning has died, while firefighters continue to contain spot fires along the road and railway caused by the truck’s first container exploding.

A smoke plume is seen near the Bruce Highway after the collision this morning.Credit: Facebook/Queensland Ambulance Service

Speaking to press this afternoon, Mackay District Officer Acting Superintendent Mark Burgess said the driver of the utility had died in what was expected to be a head-on collision between his vehicle and the B-double semi-trailer truck.

He said the cause of the crash – which occurred at 5.30 this morning at Bororen, 400 kilometres north of Brisbane – was still under investigation, but that the primary goal of police and fire services on the scene was public safety.

Police closed the exclusion zone from 5.20 this evening.

Forty-nine residents had self-evacuated from the immediate 2.5-kilometre radius exclusion zone to Bororen, after being advised by an emergency alert issued earlier today to “leave immediately”.

Police also performed door-knocks in the immediate vicinity.

The truck driver was treated at Bundaberg Hospital for abdominal, leg, pelvic, head and arm injuries, after bystanders removed him from his vehicle.

Emergency services remained at the scene battling fires involving both vehicles, and at 4.20pm were still containing spot fires along the highway and rail line.

The truck spilled ammonium nitrate, a chemical commonly used in artificial fertilisers, sparking a 2.5-kilometre exclusion zone around the crash site.

Police took aerial footage which showed the rear trailer, carrying the larger quantity of chemicals, leaking onto the ground shortly before the trailer exploded.

Queensland Police flew a drone over the crash site just before the semi-trailer’s first container exploded. Credit: Queensland Police Service

Queensland Fire and Rescue Superintendent Brad Stockwell said the truck was carrying 42.5 tonnes of the chemical, stored in a non-reactive state as an emulsion.

“Normally, that type of chemical is stable,” he said.

“It’s always stable to be transported, however, once it was involved in a vehicle accident and an impending fire heated up one of the vessels and then the pressure vessel, in time, unfortunately exploded.”

Burgess said an approximate blast radius of 500 metres was impacted.

“Power lines are down along the rail lines,” he said. “Queensland Fire Department has rendered the scene safe for first responders at this stage.”

Queensland Fire and Emergency Service said it would be a “prolonged incident” as more than five crews attack the blaze and clean up the chemicals.

Queensland Ambulance Service’s Acting Senior Operations Supervisor John Hodson-Gilmore told reporters the highway may have been damaged in the blast.

Motorists are warned it will be “quite some time” before the highway reopens due to the damage.

“There’s significant debris across the highway for approximately 50 metres onto the other side of the highway,” Hodson-Gilmore said.

“The Bruce Highway between Bororen and Tannum Sands will be closed to all traffic for quite an extended period of time.”

Normal highway traffic was being directed through “western corridors”.

with AAP