But their deaths were spectacular, at least.
― pplains, Tuesday, 6 January 2015 23:18 (nine years ago) link
http://gawker.com/series-of-huge-explosions-reported-in-tianjin-china-1723666453
― how's life, Wednesday, 12 August 2015 20:56 (eight years ago) link
just saw this on the news fuuuuuck
― irl lol (darraghmac), Wednesday, 12 August 2015 21:06 (eight years ago) link
http://img1.gtimg.com/13/1340/134047/13404746_1200x1000_0.jpg
― pplains, Thursday, 13 August 2015 02:28 (eight years ago) link
fucking horrific
― difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 13 August 2015 02:36 (eight years ago) link
(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.
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.
― Elvis Telecom, Sunday, 30 August 2015 20:41 (eight years ago) link
NASA Releases Harrowing New Photos of Last Year’s Antares Rocket Explosionhttp://gizmodo.com/nasa-releases-harrowing-new-photos-of-last-year-s-antar-1740741248
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 6 November 2015 05:12 (eight years ago) link
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.
― pplains, Friday, 6 November 2015 14:09 (eight years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytAR-48mONw
― alomar lines, Sunday, 13 December 2015 16:29 (eight years ago) link
Stephon Dingle goes in the abysmal real names thread.
― nickn, Monday, 14 December 2015 04:21 (eight years ago) link
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/
― sciatica, Thursday, 10 March 2016 00:25 (eight years ago) link
crazy shit i miss mr. gyros 'best gyros in the world' already
― portumnes (alomar lines), Friday, 11 March 2016 05:17 (eight years ago) link
sorry 'best take out restaurant in seattle'http://www.mrgyroseattle.com/images/home/05.jpg
― portumnes (alomar lines), Friday, 11 March 2016 05:20 (eight years ago) link
Bloody ell, those buildings are matchsticks!
― Interesting. No, wait, the other thing: tedious. (Trayce), Friday, 11 March 2016 05:42 (eight years ago) link
Didn't a Motel 6 blow up there not too long ago?
― pplains, Friday, 11 March 2016 14:16 (eight years ago) link
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/puget-sound/video-bremerton-motel-6-explodes/
― how's life, Friday, 11 March 2016 14:27 (eight years ago) link
http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/aug/13/river-fire-burst-pipeline-moscow-russia-video
― how's life, Friday, 11 March 2016 18:02 (eight years ago) link
http://www.houstonpress.com/news/red-mystery-liquid-leaks-into-drainage-ditch-near-massive-spring-branch-chemical-fire-8380462
― how's life, Friday, 6 May 2016 08:22 (eight years ago) link
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/11/us/texas-fertilizer-plant-blast/index.html
Holy shit, that's a twist.
― how's life, Wednesday, 11 May 2016 18:11 (eight years ago) link
no kidding. wow
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 11 May 2016 20:58 (eight years ago) link
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
― reader, if you love him so much why don't you marry him? (DJ Mencap), Tuesday, 17 May 2016 21:12 (eight years ago) link
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”.
― “bad” mothers, rebel mamas, and other radical/transgressive moms (nakhchivan), Tuesday, 17 May 2016 21:15 (eight years ago) link
I would eat my way out.
"...I think I'm blind"
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Wednesday, 18 May 2016 00:19 (eight years ago) link
In all seriousness tho, bloody heck thats one hell of a shelving collapse!
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Wednesday, 18 May 2016 00:20 (eight years ago) link
Rod Hammerton is an amazing name
― carthago delenda est (mayor jingleberries), Wednesday, 18 May 2016 00:25 (eight years ago) link
Great documentary about the Damascus, Arkansas Titan II missile explosion: http://www.commandandcontrolfilm.com - streaming on PBS now.
― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 25 January 2017 07:40 (seven years ago) link
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
― pplains, Wednesday, 25 January 2017 16:01 (seven years ago) link
watched that last night on your rec. don't even know what to say, terrifying.
― goole, Friday, 27 January 2017 17:17 (seven years ago) link
Oh man, can't wait to watch this.
― how's life, Friday, 27 January 2017 18:03 (seven years ago) link
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, 27 January 2017 19:46 (seven years ago) link
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
― the greg evigan school of improvised explosive devices (bizarro gazzara), Friday, 27 January 2017 20:53 (seven years ago) link
eric schlosser of course - damn autocorrect
― the greg evigan school of improvised explosive devices (bizarro gazzara), Friday, 27 January 2017 20:54 (seven years ago) link
Perry has not been confirmed.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-committee-indefinitely-delays-votes-rick-perry-ryan-zinke-n711151
― Οὖτις, Friday, 27 January 2017 20:55 (seven years ago) link
The Eric Schools Set is one of my favorite mod bands.
― how's life, Friday, 27 January 2017 21:01 (seven years ago) link
oh yeah, of course you're right
i'll breathe a sigh of relief until jesse ventura takes on the role
― the greg evigan school of improvised explosive devices (bizarro gazzara), Friday, 27 January 2017 21:01 (seven years ago) link
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
― sleeve, Saturday, 28 January 2017 00:45 (seven years ago) link
― 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
― pplains, Sunday, 5 February 2017 05:03 (seven years ago) link
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
― how's life, Monday, 13 February 2017 13:55 (seven years ago) link
always assumed the st francis dam was the inspiration for the van der lip dam that hollis mulwray built and then collapsed in chinatown
― sciatica, Monday, 13 February 2017 15:49 (seven years ago) link
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.
― how's life, Monday, 13 February 2017 16:02 (seven years ago) link
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
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 13 February 2017 16:36 (seven years ago) link
Oh yeah, it just made me think of it.
― how's life, Monday, 13 February 2017 16:55 (seven years ago) link
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
― pplains, Monday, 13 February 2017 17:30 (seven years ago) link
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
― pplains, Monday, 13 February 2017 17:34 (seven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUowiNeF_Rw
― Elvis Telecom, Tuesday, 14 February 2017 06:42 (seven years ago) link
Whoa.
― how's life, Tuesday, 14 February 2017 13:14 (seven years ago) link
Epic
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 14 February 2017 13:38 (seven years ago) link
Presenting the YouTube channel for the Chemical Safety Board investigations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg7mLSG-Yws
― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 15 August 2018 18:36 (five years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdDuHxwD5R4
― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 15 August 2018 18:37 (five years ago) link
The commentary makes it a candidate for the Real England thread but Buncefield has already been mentioned here upthread.Buncefield fire: 'Idiotic' teens capture fuel depot blaze on film
― Chequers Plays Pop (snoball), Sunday, 16 December 2018 11:50 (five years ago) link