Photograph was edited for publication purposes. A wall of fire roared through a block of Venice Boulevard in the Venice area destroying businesses and apartments and leaving at least two dead and 26 injured. Large fireballs were hurled and thick black smoke billowed 300 feet into the air, when an excavation machine on a state street-widening project struck a buried Standard Oil Co. 8-inch pipeline. The gasoline, under 600 pounds of pressure per square inch, shot up like a fountain and formed a mist; then came the explosion. A full investigation was promised by Caltrans, which had contracted with a private construction firm for the street-widening work. Photograph caption dated June 17, 1976 reads, "Charred remains of two buildings is all that is left standing after a massive gasoline pipeline explosion leveled a block of buildings in West Los Angeles, killing at least two persons. The blast was apparently triggered when a road construction tractor severed a pipeline while breaking up street (foreground)."
Type
Image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;24 x 35 cm. on sheet 29 x 36 cm. Photographic prints
Fire fighters--California--Culver City Explosions--California--Culver City Fires--California--Los Angeles Streets--California--Venice (Los Angeles) Lost architecture--California--Venice (Los Angeles) Venice Boulevard (Los Angeles, Calif.) Venice (Los Angeles, Calif.) Los Angeles Herald-Examiner photographs Herald-Examiner Collection photographs
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