Thread for talking about industrial explosions, accidents/craziness of the past

My parents often spoke of the night not so long after I was born, when the fireworks factory blew up. My dad's sister and her husband were staying overnight on a visit. They never stayed the night again.

Whoa, that screencap is an actual IRL image. Almost looked like something from a video game app.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaS9B0qDemk

this from the 2000 enschede fireworks explosion is one of the classics of its day, 23 people died just in case you enjoyed this

But their deaths were spectacular, at least.

http://gawker.com/series-of-huge-explosions-reported-in-tianjin-china-1723666453

just saw this on the news fuuuuuck

http://img1.gtimg.com/13/1340/134047/13404746_1200x1000_0.jpg

fucking horrific

(to no one's great surprise)

Behind Tianjin Tragedy, a Company That Flouted Regulations and Reaped Profits

In interviews with more than a dozen of Rui Hai’s former clients and associates — and unusually critical reports in China’s state-controlled news media — a picture has emerged of a company that exploited weak governance in a showcase economic district and used political connections to shield its operations from scrutiny.

Rui Hai began handling hazardous chemicals before it obtained a permit to do so, and it secured licenses and approvals from at least five local agencies that conducted questionable reviews of its operations. Local authorities outsourced one safety review required for a storage permit to a private contractor that Rui Hai selected and paid.

As much as 3,000 tons of hazardous chemicals were stored at Rui Hai on the night of the explosions, including 700 tons of sodium cyanide, deadly in a dose of less than a tablespoon, and 1,300 tons of fertilizer nitrates, more than 500 times the amount used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Rui Hai’s shipping yard covered more than 11 acres, but clients said it routinely packed huge volumes of different volatile chemicals together in haphazard fashion instead of storing them separately, at safe distances and in smaller quantities as recommended in the industry.

“Nobody wanted to stand in their way,” said one chemicals exporter in Tianjin, who asked not to be named to protect his business from reprisal, when asked why regulators took no action.

The catastrophe in Tianjin has stunned a nation inured to living with one of the worst industrial safety records in the world. By the government’s own count, more than 68,000 people were killed in such accidents last year — nearly 200 every day, most of them poor, powerless and far from China’s boom towns.

NASA Releases Harrowing New Photos of Last Year’s Antares Rocket Explosion
http://gizmodo.com/nasa-releases-harrowing-new-photos-of-last-year-s-antar-1740741248

When the in-laws were here in the U.S., one of them kept saying how the water towers reminded him of War of the Worlds.

Those pictures pretty much illustrate that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytAR-48mONw

Stephon Dingle goes in the abysmal real names thread.

http://static.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/03092016-aerial20-780x524.jpg

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/greenwood-explosion-destroys-buildings-injures-9-firefighters/

crazy shit i miss mr. gyros 'best gyros in the world' already

sorry 'best take out restaurant in seattle'
http://www.mrgyroseattle.com/images/home/05.jpg

Bloody ell, those buildings are matchsticks!

Didn't a Motel 6 blow up there not too long ago?

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/puget-sound/video-bremerton-motel-6-explodes/

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/aug/13/river-fire-burst-pipeline-moscow-russia-video

http://www.houstonpress.com/news/red-mystery-liquid-leaks-into-drainage-ditch-near-massive-spring-branch-chemical-fire-8380462

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/11/us/texas-fertilizer-plant-blast/index.html

Holy shit, that's a twist.

no kidding. wow

this was a front page tabloid headline the other day and maybe technically outside the parameters of this thread but close enough: Worker buried underneath 55,000 tons of cheese escapes alive after eight hours in a pickle

55,000 tons of cheese seems, to me, more like... all the cheese in the world at any one time. or I lack the mathematical brain or dairy industry inside knowledge to better process this

Deputy Chief Fire Officer Rod Hammerton said getting to the trapped man was like “crawling over rubble, but rubble made of giant blocks of cheese”.

I would eat my way out.

"...I think I'm blind"

In all seriousness tho, bloody heck thats one hell of a shelving collapse!

Rod Hammerton is an amazing name

Great documentary about the Damascus, Arkansas Titan II missile explosion: http://www.commandandcontrolfilm.com - streaming on PBS now.

My old boss is portrayed in that. Definitely a story that bears repeating over and over.

Here's my old post about it: Thread for talking about industrial explosions, accidents/craziness of the past

watched that last night on your rec. don't even know what to say, terrifying.

Oh man, can't wait to watch this.

am i wrong that the bulk of the footage of guys in the facility is reenacted? i usually hate that kind of thing but i thought it was effectively done here. the graphics of the inside of the anthill were great.

oh, i've read the eric schools set book - didn't realise there was a documentary based on it

the whole book is fucking terrifying (and even more so now that rick fucking perry is in charge of the usa's nuclear arsenal) but the forensic detail it goes into on the titan silo explosion def gave me a few sleepless nights

eric schlosser of course - damn autocorrect

Perry has not been confirmed.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-committee-indefinitely-delays-votes-rick-perry-ryan-zinke-n711151

The Eric Schools Set is one of my favorite mod bands.

oh yeah, of course you're right

i'll breathe a sigh of relief until jesse ventura takes on the role

I don't know where to put this, so I'm putting it here, just learned about it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Donora_smog

am i wrong that the bulk of the footage of guys in the facility is reenacted? i usually hate that kind of thing but i thought it was effectively done here. the graphics of the inside of the anthill were great.

― goole, Friday, January 27, 2017 1:46 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They did do a good job of blending reenactment scenes without letting it get in the way of the real archival footage. My only complaint is that Arkansas vehicles do not now nor in 1980 require front license plates.

Now, if you want to see some bad reenactments of Damascus, check out this one where they turn my old radio boss into one of the Hardy Boys:

http://www.travelchannel.com/shows/mysteries-at-the-museum/video/the-titan-ii-missile-crisis

Crumbling dam situation in Oroville, CA

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/13/not-a-drill-thousands-evacuated-in-calif-as-oroville-dam-threatens-to-flood/?utm_term=.d45ab689432a

Not the same thing, but made me think of the St. Francis Dam disaster, which has not been mentioned yet on this thread:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Francis_Dam#Prelude_to_disaster

always assumed the st francis dam was the inspiration for the van der lip dam that hollis mulwray built and then collapsed in chinatown

Ah, it's been years since I've seen that movie. I knew it was about those water issues, but I'm fuzzy on the details.

Not to pile on, I know you said you realize the 2 are different but for my own panic avoidance:

St Francis was a complete dam *collapse*; Oroville we're talking about an eroded spillway, but the dam is still in tact. Still a legit scary situation & a fuckton of water - thankfully situation has dialed down from last night - but i gotta mega underline that this was waaaaaaaay WAY removed from the horrors of St Francis

Oh yeah, it just made me think of it.

Here's where I really sound like an idiot, but

This weekend was the first time that I really understood what a spillway was. I've read about them before, but only formulated in my mind that they were a type of "runaway ramp" for the water or a temporary reservoir. I didn't "get" what they actually did though.

I think my problem stems from the fact that the dam in my hometown has the spillways on the other side of the dam itself. There's never been some sort of water chute off to the side used to relieve the lake elevation.

http://i.imgur.com/OmXyHlr.jpg

I mean, I would identify this as a dam, straight up, but still, in my mind's eye, I want to call it a levee.

http://i.imgur.com/nFNQZ20.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUowiNeF_Rw

Whoa.

Epic