Officials rule out explosion at Fort and Dearborn streets in Detroit

[Richard]

I'm wondering if that scrapyard has something to do with it. If you look at some of the later photos there is the big mound on Dearborn St, and then one behind the former Stash building. What's roughly equidistant from those two mounds? The scrapyard.

I'm wondering if maybe the weight of the huge pile there was pushing on some soft ground underneath and slowly displacing dirt. DTE has repaired a leak or two in that area recently; that suggests the ground may have been shifting slowly for weeks. It might've cracked the water main, and once water started mixing with the dirt it got soft enough that it finally gave way in catastrophic fashion.

Hydraulic forces,those large piles look more like coke in the video.

When you look at the upheaval it tapers starting across the piles and builds up to the 10 foot,like it was pushed out until it hit a weak spot in order to go up.

With all of the rain soaking the ground,causing the force to take the least path of resistance,they said there was methane leaking out of the crack in the pile,you can see the vapor flow out in the video.

If there was a methane pocket there or a void it would have been the path to the weakest point.

It is a definitive path that it took,not just out in every direction.

They said the methane leak was contained,not sure how they did that,but if there was lot of methane in that section,the rains added weight to the piles which compressed the soil forcing the methane out of the ground.

But there is something else going on,unless there was just a natural weak link leading from the piles to the road.

It did not send the most energy off to the side,the building they demolished just caught the edge of the slide,the path that it took is defined.

I kinda think there is a long lost tunnel under there that directed the flow,it could not raise to the left because of the weight of the other pile,it did not shoot out the back of the pile and the building was sitting on compacted undisturbed ground for,judging by the building materials,at least 70 years.

If it was a gas or methane leak explosion,there would have had to been an ignition source from the top,somebody would have seen a fire ball and the building would have had some charring,because there would have been a lot of vapor pooling on the top side surface.

Unless of course it was a meth lab under ground or something more sinister and the ignition source was from under ground,but then there would have been a smoke plum for a short time or a puff of smoke as it vented.

But being it tapers and not a circle upheaval like a blast would produce,it was pushed out and up.

Not that I am an engineer or stayed at a holiday inn express,but I have seen this before in a far away land.

It will be interesting to see what they find out.