Six hurt in construction blast

Greg Risling

Six construction workers were injured Thursday afternoon when an

earthshaking explosion rocked a planned residential development near

Newport Coast, launching large chunks of bedrock into the air.

The crew members were standing about 1,000 feet away in an area deemed

safe when the blast sent debris and rocks skyward. Witnesses reported the

rocks shot out of a ravine that was being excavated.

“Rocks were raining down on them,” said Capt. Paul Hunter of the Orange

County Fire Authority. “The debris came more horizontally than it did in

a looping fashion.”

Workers were grading an unincorporated area on Bonita Canyon Drive near

the Corona del Mar Freeway. They were trying to break through a wall of

diabase, a fine-grained rock that was preventing the workers from grading

a hillside, authorities said.

The workers planted charges underground to loosen the earth. Shortly

after 2 p.m., something went wrong with the blast and debris was hurled

all over the construction site.

Four men were taken to local hospitals, one of whom suffered a broken

leg. The others received cuts and scrapes from the flying debris. Two

workers were treated and released at the scene.

Several vehicles were damaged by the shower of rocks, including a truck

that had a window knocked out.

The site was closed and workers were sent home as state safety inspectors

began their investigation.

More than 200 homes and apartments are scheduled to be built on the site

as part of an Irvine Co. housing project.

Company Vice President Paul Kranhold said the project is an extension of

Newport Ridge North that sits adjacent to the property. He added that the

company doing the work, Baxter Drilling, had been setting off the

explosives periodically for several months.

“The purpose of the blasting was to break up that bedrock that existed

deep in the ground,” Kranhold said. “This obviously was a surprise given

that Baxter is one of the leading blasters in this area. We don’t know

what happened yet, but we don’t anticipate any significant impact on the

project.”