Was there a bomb and nobody kew it?

[MakoMike]

As believable as blaming the tooth fairy:

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (Reuters) - An explosion that injured a woman at a Rhode Island beach earlier this month was a likely the result of a build up of hydrogen gas from a forgotten power cable buried beneath the sand, state officials said on Friday.

The copper cable had originally been laid by the U.S. Coast Guard to power equipment, but had long since been abandoned, officials said, adding that there appeared to be no further danger to summer sunbathers.

"I would take my kids there," said Arthur Spivack, an oceanographer at the University Rhode Island, who helped conduct the review.

The July 11 beach explosion tossed Kathleen Danise, 60, of Waterbury, Connecticut, 10 feet into the air. She suffered two cracked ribs, a concussion, bruises and scratches and was briefly hospitalized.

Police immediately evacuated the beach, but crowds were allowed to return the next day.

A team including state police, the state fire marshal's office, the state Department of Environmental Management, and university oceanographers probed the site for almost two weeks, digging in the sand and testing samples.

[Ed B]

That's good detective work by URI. You don't think about hydrogen being given off in the corrosion process because it happens so slowly. But copper in a corrosive marine environment turning into copper oxide gives off hydrogen. (Cu + H2O = CuO +H2). In this case with a conductive and corrosive material like copper which is encased in a rubber jacketed cable, you have a place for the hydrogen to accumulate. By bad luck some hydrogen must have been weeping out a hole or the end of the cable and the gas met a cigarette. KABOOM.

Hydrogen accumulation is serious business in the submarine world and you have atmospheric control equipment specifically to get rid of it.

I suspect they were very aware it most likely was the cable early on soon after they found it, but just wanted to make sure they had all there info complete before they came out publicly which led to a lot of speculation.