Massive California Chemical Leak Forces 40,000 Residents To Evacuate | Tank Explosion | N18G

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]Tonight, about 50,000 people are being told to evacuate in Orange County, California, as temperatures rise dangerously inside a tank containing a toxic chemical. Officials fear a leak of the chemical into the air, or what they say could be a catastrophic explosion, and it's just miles from Disneyland and Knottberry Farm in Orange County.

[00:00:18]Though, both of those parks are outside the evacuation zone. I want to go now to CNN's Veronica Miracle, who is in Los Angeles. Uh, Veronica, as of now, crews say the tank's temperature increased in the last few hours. Not the way they want it to go. What is the latest?

[00:00:36]>> Yeah, Jessica, they reported some bad news at their press conference today that they were hoping that by spraying water on the tank that it would cool the chemical temperature down. And in fact, it's been increasing by about a degree an hour. So yesterday it was about 77 degrees in the morning and the internal temperature today at last check was about 90 degrees. Definitely not the direction that they want to go because there's really two potentially very bad outcomes here. The first being that that toxic heating chemical uh could leak by the thousands of gallons into the area or the other potential very catastrophic situation is a massive explosion.

[00:01:14]Officials did paint a picture of what could potentially happen in that worst case scenario. And here's what they had to say.

[00:01:24]>> So if this tank fails and we have an explosion, these represent our blast zone. The innermost circle represents areas where we can expect severe structural damage and significant harm.

[00:01:36]Beyond that, you'll see an orange oblong that represents areas that are immediately dangerous to life and health where it would cause injury if anybody inhale in inhales or is impacted by the product in question. And then the yellow is our non-hazardous zone which is our odor threshold. This product has a very low odor threshold and can be smelt very easily. So that's why that representation is very large. But again, it is non-hazardous at that level.

[00:02:07]So, the chemical in question is called MMA. It's used to manufacture plastics.

[00:02:12]And as the official was talking about, just by smelling it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be harmful to your health. However, it can uh there can be respiratory issues. There can be adverse health effects. And in fact, some residents in the area have reported uh symptoms of dizziness and other issues.

[00:02:29]And about 15% of residents who are in the evacuation zone have actually refused to leave, which is not a great situation. Officials are emphasizing that those who are in the red zone, in the evacuation zone, uh those who are outside of it rather, there's no issues in terms of health, you don't even need to wear a mask. So that's why they want people to leave the evacuation zone.

[00:02:50]About 50,000 people are under evacuation orders at this point. And what officials are hoping will happen is that they'll continue to spray the tanks with water.

[00:02:58]it'll reduce the core temperature and that it will harden. The chemical will harden from the outside in. Uh but there's no guarantees that's going to happen.