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

jeez:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse

holy shit

Yeah, that one's a real bummer.

Sorta remembered when that happened.

After some tragic events, there'll be those police authorities who will say, "Whew, if the tornado had been closer to the highway or if the third bomb had gone off or if this had happened on a Saturday night, the casualties would have been double!"

That Kansas City thing is a good example of "happening at the worst possible time" though by design, I guess it couldn't have happened at three in the morning anyway.

I'd post the Hyatt disaster and the one below to the "I Always Get Those Two Mixed Up!" thread, but it'd come across as too flippant. Both around the same time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Grand_fire

I remember when the Hyatt walkway collapsed.

ex-Flaming Lips drummer Kliph Scurlock talks about the disaster a bit in a podcast interview (Low Times?). His mom was killed in the collapse.

some of the details of that collapse are just so grim, like the part about those who were going to die being told so and just being given morphine so they could focus on the other injured people. it's like something out of 'band of brothers'.

It's been a year since Lac-Mégantic.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/a-look-at-lac-megantic-one-year-later/article19395143/

This doesn't exactly fit in with the industrial nature of this thread, although a combination of drought and agriculture contributed to it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshtigo_Fire

This site has a great section of first-hand accounts:

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wioconto/Fire.htm

"We're pretty much notable for our train crashes"

http://www.knoe.com/story/26708389/train-derails-in-mer-rouge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuH1Ogdx4cg

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/28/us/nasa-rocket-explodes/index.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCWunnJXdm0

Yikes!

One of the most destructive fires in the history of the city occurred on 18 June 1875, when a disastrous fire in the Liberties area of the city saw burning whiskey flow through the streets of the area like lava.

http://comeheretome.com/2014/04/09/the-1875-liberties-whiskey-fire/

http://youtube.com/yQeEcBFE2Hc

Messed that up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQeEcBFE2Hc

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