I could not beleive it, last night I got to my apartment at 12:15am, at approx. 12:24am a huge shockwave shook my aluminum and glass doors that open to the balcony. I was 10 ft away and going over there to let my dog in. WOW. It was a huge loud shake like there was a monster outside trying to get in. A moment after I hear a boom and see a Huge flash just over a hill. I didnt have my 1Ds mk3 with me so had to do with the Oly e410 (always charged up and ready to go). Here are some photos, fire is still burnning, even stronger now after over 20 hours. I was quite shaken up. The explosion caused a 2.8 magnitude (richter) quake that registered on the local sysmic network. The shockwave was felt many miles away. Most powerful thing i have witnessed.

Puerto Rico. Thanks for sharing this. I wonder if the fumes are toxic or how toxic? Now you know what people have endured for centuries in war zones. Imagine London and Germany in WWI (edited: This was a typo that Rob caught, and was suppose to be WWII not WWI) or Iraq, etc. and so on.

Rather, imagine London during WW2; and the West End shows kept on running. As did the news theatres - anyone remember them?

Also did the trains, and I remember looking up at the summer sky and seeing huge gliders being towed to God knows where. As a kid, I imagined it exciting; now I wonder how many of those guys ever made it home or even across the Channel.

Rob C

Or New York in September, October and November of 2001. It was some shit.

Rob yes I meant WWII. Thanks for pointing that typo out.

I heard a news report this AM that suggested there were grafitti nearby hinting at an explosion, as if this might be an act of terrorism. Any more details available?

It turned out the guy (kid) who did the graffitti was extremely scared since I believe federal agents were VERY serious and went after him. He confessed he did it after the explosion and had nothing to do with the blast.

Keep in mind this explosion was during a very peaceful, still clear night, on one of the most densely populated islands in the world, during absolute peace time. The tremor it generated was stronger than what the twin towers disaster generated. The shockwave also was unbelievably strong. I mean, close to 300,000 people felt it (or more) since the blast was right in the middle of the metropolitan area, yes it ocured in an industrial park but around it are many residential areas just 1/2 mile away. The plume of smoke went up 3-6k feet and the trail of smoke went down wind 30-60 miles or more at one point. I even saw thunderstorms form on the smoke/cloud trail miles away. It was pretty serious. The ammount of energy expelled in the initial explosion was just unreal (would like to know the lbs of TNT equivalent). I took lots more pictures yesterday even did a timelapse at night and during the day (will try to process it today to generate a quicktime)

Here is a Time Lapse video I made:

http://www.vimeo.com/7252136


I used my 1Ds mk3 (JPG S) with 50mm f1.4 set at f2.8 (exposure about 1sec at iso 800)

I made this last night, the fire was MUCH more controlled than the morning before but still had something left!