Blasts rumbled through the region for 40 minutes and fire lit up the night sky east of Toronto as police went door-to-door ordering people to get out of the area.
``There was one big mushroom cloud followed by a series of smaller explosions, like somebody attacking something,'' said F. Harris, a resident in nearby Bowmanville.
``You could see these things shooting into the air like rockets. The house was shaking.''
``I saw this big explosion, this big ball of fire in flames up in the air and then I saw another explosion and it was something like I've never seen before,'' Suzanne Bies said at an evacuation centre.
Initially, it was feared that up to 5,000 people would be forced from their homes, but police later put the number at ``hundreds.''
Sgt. Paul Malik, a Durham police spokesman, said late Tuesday that no one was injured but cautioned that ``it's still a really hot fire.''
Tanks were still exploding nearly three hours after the fire started but Malik said the blaze ``is somewhat controlled.''
Firefighters were also trying to control a fire in 35,000 gallon tank.
Police said early Wednesday that the fire department wouldn't let people return to their homes until electricity was restored.
``It looks like the people that have been evacuated are not going to be allowed to go back in until the morning,'' said Malik.
Many in the evacuation centre ignored the advice and left while others headed elsewhere for the night.
Provincial police had closed Highway 401, a major east-west corridor, for a few hours after reports that pieces of propane tanks were landing on road which runs near Lake Ontario.
Agnes Jones of Bowmanville lives about a five-minute drive from a marina and adjoining two-storey hotel that is near the propane company.
``It sounded like a bunch of explosions, like hunters firing guns, except that the house was shaking.''
The fire was about five kilometres east of the Darlington nuclear generating facility.
The blaze was one day before the 25th anniversary of the Mississauga train derailment.
