HOMES WERE SHAKING 10 MILES AWAY: At least eight injured, five critically, after explosions at propane gas plant in Florida ? 'It sounds like bombs are going off'

Tyler Boylston/Demotix/Corbis

Fire from the Blue Rhino propane plant explosions lights up the night sky on Monday in central Florida.

At least eight people were injured, including five critically, as a series of explosions rocked a central Florida propane gas plant on Monday night, sending local residents who believed "bombs are going off" into a panic.

All the workers at the Blue Rhino propane plant in Tavares, Fla., were accounted for early Tuesday.

"People from very far away and in towns six, seven, eight, 10 miles from here were reporting feeling their homes shaking," John Herrell of the Lake County Sheriff's Office told ABCNews.com.

One of the injured people was not a worker, but a man who was hit by a car while trying to run away from the fire.

Leesburg resident Kaghy Sam, 29, was sprinting on the road "due to a large fire and several explosions" just before 11 p.m. Monday and "ran into the direct path" of 72-year-old Gene Batson's vehicle, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

Sam was taken to Ocala Regional Medical Center with serious injuries, and no charges were filed.

Three workers were listed in critical condition at Orlando Regional Medical Center early Tuesday, while one person injured in the explosion was in critical condition at the University of Florida Health Shands Hospital. Other injured workers drove themselves to hospitals.

Five workers walked up to a command center with skin hanging off their arms, torso and faces, a fire official said.

The plant, located northwest of Orlando, refilled propane tanks usually used for barbecues and other uses. There were at least 53,000 20-pound tanks on the premises.

There were 14 full-time employees and 10 part-timers at the scene when the blasts happened around 11 p.m.

"It sounds like bombs are going off," Norma Haygood told WESH in Orlando.

The tanks at the plant hold 90,000 gallons of propane each, but did not ignite the fire, Tavares Fire Chief Richard Keith said Tuesday morning.

"We don't think there was any act of sabotage or anything like that," Keith told the Orlando Sentinel. "It was probably a human or equipment error."

Three 33,000-pound tanks of propane were untouched even though hoses designed to spray water on them in case of fire did not go off because they needed to be manually activated, Lake County Battalion Chief Chris Croughwell said.

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"Most sane people don't stick around for an event like this," he said.

Tavares Mayor Robert Wolfe was surprised the hoses needed to be manually activated. "We're lucky those tanks didn't explode," he said. If they did, it "would have wiped us out," he said.

Video footage on WESH showed raging fires following the explosions. Residents who were told to leave their homes as a precaution were later allowed to return.

"You could definitely see the fire from across the lake," Ashley McCormick of Mount Dora told ABC. "It was humongous even from seven miles away. You could hear the explosions, just one after another and then after it would explode, a fireball would shoot up into the sky."

"It was like a car had run into my house, is what I thought had happened," said Marni Whitehead, who lives less than a mile from the plant.

She ran outside and saw the explosions.

"We knew right away it was the plant, the propane plant," Whitehead said. "After that, it was just sort of panic. And it was just boom after boom after boom."

"I have heard tons of booms for at least 30 minutes," Mount Dora's Blake Cottle told ABC affiliate WFTV-TV.

Officials believe the fire was contained, but while reporters were examining the facility on Tuesday morning, firefighters found burning plastic tank caps in a gigantic container, according to the Sentinel.

Blue Rhino, which was built in 2004 and employs fewer than 50 people, is a subsidiary of Kansas-based Ferrellgas.

"We know very little so far. It's very early, it's very preliminary," a Ferrellgas spokesman told the Sentinel.

"It was a tremendous fire," Keith said Tuesday morning. "We still have a lot of work to do."

Blue Rhino was cited with a "serious" violation by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration in November of 2011, according to the Sentinel.

"We don't have any details regarding the event," an OSHA spokesperson said. "As is standard OSHA policy, OSHA has up to six months from the beginning of its investigation to issue its findings and determine whether any OSHA standards were violated. OSHA does not issue preliminary or interim reports, so we won't be able to comment on the investigation until the final report is issued."

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