Altona plastics manufacturer Qenos has denied an ‘explosion’ occurred at its Maidstone Street plant last week.
About 8.20pm on Tuesday, alarmed residents started using Facebook to find out the cause of what they thought was an explosion.
Qenos senior environmental manager Les Harman said the noise was a ground flare activating, which made a series of popping sounds.
The flare is programmed to burn ethylene and when it initially lights up “it makes a rumbling or popping sound that the community sometimes describes as sounding like an explosion”, Mr Harman said.
