‘Minimal’ risk from Sanikiluaq gasoline leak, GN says
Residents advised to avoid area near tank farm containment area; Hamlet residents light up social media to livestream updates on situation
People in Sanikiluaq went out onto the land to get away from the hamlet after a gas leak forced them to evacuate Monday afternoon. There were reports that some elderly residents in the hamlet of 1,000 people, were evacuated by plane to neighbouring communities. (Photo by Christina Mulhern, special to Nunatsiaq News)
Updated on Monday, July 22, 2024 at 10 p.m.
The risk to people in Sanikiluaq from a gasoline spill on Monday is “minimal,” the Government of Nunavut says.
But the government advised people and pets to stay away from the tank farm containment area until further notice, following a spill of an estimated 5,000 litres due to what the GN called “tank overfill” that occurred around 1 p.m. on Monday.
The Petroleum Products Division’s representatives closed the tank to prevent further overfilling, the government said in a public service announcement issued at 6:20 p.m. — five hours after the spill prompted residents of the island community in Hudson Bay to begin their own evacuation of the community.
The government later said it had “not issued any form of evacuation notice.”
People in Sanikiluaq started congregating on the land outside the community on Monday afternoon, following reports of a fuel leak in the community.
People in the hamlet took to social media at around 1:30 ET to livestream what they described as an “evacuation” of the community.
There were no reports of injuries as hundreds of people moved away from the hamlet’s core area by going out on the land or going to the water’s edge.
Sanikiluaq is Nunavut’s southernmost hamlet, located on an island in the southeast corner of Hudson Bay.
It has a population of a little more than 1,000 people, according to the 2021 census.
One TikTok user hosted a livestream for more than an hour Monday, talking to approximately 700 viewers who were watching from as far away as Arizona. She said she was broadcasting from approximately five kilometres outside the hamlet.
People leave Sanikiluaq due to reports of a fuel leak in the community on Monday afternoon. (Photo courtesy of Allan Rumboldt)
“Everyone is being evacuated from Sanikiluaq, Nunavut because the gas is leaking! Very big!” she said, adding there was very little official information available as to whether there was a plan to send planes or boats for people to get further away from the community.
Some elders, “the ones who are oxygen-dependent,” were being transported to a nearby community, said resident Allan Rumbolt, a former MLA.
The nearby Nunavik village of Umijuaq was standing by, ready to help people from Sanikiluaq, Lucy Kumarluk, the vice-chairperson of the Kativik Regional Government, said on Monday afternoon.
Sanikiluaq had not declared a state of emergency as of Monday evening, Kumarluk noted.
Nunavut MP Lori Idlout wrote on Facebook she is “hoping for safety and comfort” for people who were forced to evacuate.
“I hope the gas leak they experienced, forcing them to evacuate, is addressed safely,” Idlout wrote, adding she had been in touch with Premier P.J. Akeeagok and Liberal Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal.
Some people had been evacuated to the school gym and outside of the hamlet’s core, Idlout said.
Vandal said he was “grateful” no one had been hurt. The federal government was monitoring the situation and was ready to assist, he added, but said local authorities should address the specific details about the leak and evacuation.
Just before 5 p.m., Idlout said the valve where the gas leak occurred had been shut off. An environmental firm was to be flown into the community to conduct inspections, Idlout said. She added the Government of Nunavut was expected to issue a statement Monday afternoon.
Officials in other municipalities were considering what help they might be able to offer.
Iqaluit Mayor Solomon Awa and the city’s administration planned to meet Monday afternoon or evening to discuss what support the city could provide, spokesperson Geoff Byrne said.
Sanikiluaq, a remote hamlet in Nunavut with a population of 1,000, is being evacuated Monday following reports of a gasoline leak. (Image courtesy of Google Maps)
“So at this point, it’s just a general conversation on how we can support that community,” Byrne said in a phone interview.
Nunatsiaq News has tried to contact Nunavut’s Department of Community and Government Services, the hamlet, and RCMP for more information but hasn’t received any official statement.
Nunavut Minister of Community and Government Services David Joanasie was in his office at the legislature in Iqaluit, but not available for an interview, a staff member said.
Joanasie’s department oversees the Petroleum Products Division which is responsible for the “purchase, import, storage and delivery of petroleum products in Nunavut,” according to the Government of Nunavut website.
This is a breaking story. Please send any news tips to editors@nunatsiaq.com.
With files by Nehaa Bimal, Randi Beers, Arty Sarkisian and Jeff Pelletier.
Correction: This story has been updated to correctly identify Lucy Kumarluk as the vice-chairperson of the Kativik Regional Government.
I will take Contractor Error for $1000 Mr Trebek
a fuel leak like drip drip drip or was it fuel gushing out of a pipe or side of the tank?
Well I told you this would happen, years of neglect from PPD in Nunavut has caused this and future problems and they are big, any contractor doing these contracts is liable and most of them are coops so good luck getting your stores insured and food prices omg!!!!! anyone doing these contracts must be alerted..drop them now!
What if it was an error by the fuel delivery ship filling the tank at the tank farm, will that increase the price of food? Will it still be the Coop who is at fault?
We easily saw in real time how misinformation spread like wildfire with number of liters spilled. 84k then 120k, actual number, around 5k all within the containment area.
You had posts asking for donations, you had posts saying they were not sure they were going to make it because the town was covered in a huge fuel leak and could blow up any moment.
The gn is also partially at fault for how slow it released meaningful information though. But slow for the gn is just it’s baseline.
Slow, maybe… but in the age of instant information (including bad information, as you’ve shown) we expect to know things immediately. Maybe, that is not realistic.
Hundreds of people vacate due to blatant misinformation and false rumors.
Perfect example of how rumours start and get passed around and believed, some people really like creating and spreading rumours, we all know who they are in our communities.
How to put together a news story:
Who
What
Why
When
Where
How
That’s the way I learned to do it.
If you are suggesting NN was in error here, you are sadly mistaken.
People doing live videos and sharing misleading information with her words would be closer to being at fault.
and people overreacting without knowing the facts doesn’t help.
Government of Nunavut aka CGS aka PPD dictates how much is delivered to each community, contractors have no control over them. With so many spills in Nunavut, where are the Environmental Protection Officers?
Very slow information & communication coming out from the GN.
Who the hell came up with those numbers? 5000L and 84000L don’t look at all similar.
Huge amount of misinformation spread by foolish people. All contained to the tank farm area as it was designed to be.
And the ‘expanding’ tanks – what does this mean and is it even a real thing?
So the GN did not issue an official evacuation notice . . . so who organized flights from Kuujjuarpik that came in & flew out some vulnerable people . . . . and who paid for these fights? Was it the hamlet?
Even with the containment area around the tank farm, it wasn’t the best idea to have built the new health centre within 500′ of the tank farm . . . newer homes within 300′.
Kudos to Lori for not blaming this on colonialism. I was expecting to see that as I read the article.
People up here blow everything out of proportion, “the sky is falling, the sky is falling, help us, omg help us, send money” Flying people out of the community, really! Who paid for those flights? 5000L is somehow 120,000L, where do people get their information from? Polarman!!!
Can’t blame people for wanting a free holiday from Sanikiluaq.
Tom, this is Nunavut, and Facebook runs Nunavut, and everyone believes everything, and don’t say the Sky is falling, there will be a massive panic,remember people up here did not want to get COVID 19 vacs, because someone on Facebook said people will turn into monkeys.and the latest craze in Canada because of wildfires is evacuation.
The spill report on the GN website indicates 80K litres spilled.
https://www.gov.nt.ca/ecc/en/node/26604/timeline
It has been updated, 6600 litres spilled.
Anyone can file a spill report with whatever information you want essentially. Means nothing until the official report is released and from actual GN sources its being reported at 5,000 in the containment zone.
It takes a bit of time to investigate and prepare the correct communication which apparently is not fast enough so the misinformed put out misinformation to the Facebook fanatics who add thier own “knowledge” and this is how this stuff happens. If more people kept thier “wisdom” bottled up crap like this would not happen. Too many people with too much time spent doing nothing.
Every northern community in NU and Nunavik, as well as, NT all need some sort of Emergency Preparedness or Crisis Control. Stuff happens when you least expect it.
Nunavut Hamlets all have emergency plans which have been developed in partnership with CGS Emergency Management Division. In this case there was no emergency, so no emergency measures put in place. Unfortunately that didn’t stop a few people from convincing the whole town that the sky was falling.
I sense a overzelous reaction to an overfill of a truck? or if it was the boat transfer then PPD’s fault cause they should be monitoring the situation not just the local contractors, I’ve seen major issues with this process including workers falling asleep, GN workers smoking MJ during night shift within containment perimeters..need an overhaul in Rankin, a purge.
If it was a ship overfill, then couple issues, dipping tanks is a guessing game, the people watching the lines and dipping obviously did it wrong, boat should have known correct amount, where was the GN worker overseeing the whole process? and was he qualified or brand new no training like the norm. If it was a gas truck overfill, happens due to driver error, walking away from truck or not watching from the top of truck, then the coop is responsible, insurance will cover but huge deductibles that will become higher with every spill this year and yes in the end it will come back to food prices, so yes even if its the boats fault its the contractors responsibility to eat all loses..
Will an announcement be forthcoming caused by the hypnotic must believe without questions or thought climate-change ?
I wonder if that 18 year old mayor had anything to do with making the decision for the community to evacuate? I have a sneaky suspicion that . . .
Its gonna be interesting to hear the sequence of events, for future emergency preparedness document upgrades. lol
She resigned in April.
Nunatsiaq:
Could you please find & share answers relating to the evacuation. Apart from the person broadcasting on TikTok who is the source of the needing to evacuate part of the community?Having lived in Sanikiluaq through Covid, the misinformation about everything — esp. vaccinations was utterly over the top.
The level of gullibility was stunning and needed constant addressing.
I would have hoped that our community would have learned a few things from the covid experience and believing everything on FB or TikTok. Official governmental websites are appropriate places for information.
Perhaps the Hamlet of Sanikiluaq (and all Hamlets) need to share with community members plans and processes for emergencies and evacuations. Perhaps CGS/Petroleum Products Division should provide information to the community of both the infrastructure & plans for potential emergencies relating to the tank farm.
–> Who arranged and paid for the couple of flights evacuating elders to Kuujjuarpik?
And just last week there was a fire close to the gas station in Sanikiluaq 😳
Tank farms won’t explode, it will over flow,if they catch fire.
Butane and jet fuel are dangerous.
However, she used words that misled the public .” the gas leak they experienced, forcing them to evacuate”. Just inflaming the rumors.
And did you report your sightings to the appropriate authorities or did you just wait for a spill in Sanikiluaq to focus on this?