Southern California Chemical Tank

About 40,000 people are under evacuation orders and schools have shut down in Southern California due to a hazardous chemical leak. Officials say a storage tank began leaking methyl methacrylate, a chemical used in making plastic parts. The tank overheated Thursday at an aerospace plastics facility in Garden Grove, where evacuations were initially ordered. Officials expanded evacuation orders Friday to include parts of Cypress, Stanton, Anaheim, Buena Park and Westminster after failing to stop the leak overnight. The tank was holding between 6,000 and 7,000 gallons of the chemical at the GKN Aerospace facility, which makes parts for commercial and military aircraft.