Obscure disasters (formerly "Ever hear of Texas City Disaster...?)

[youtalkfunny]

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

"The Texas City Disaster of April 16, 1947, started with the mid-morning fire and detonation of approximately 17,000,000 pounds (8,500 tons) of ammonium nitrate on board the French-registered vessel SS Grandcamp in the port at Texas City, Texas, killing 581 people."

The view from Galveston, ten miles away:





Found this page while randomly clicking links on Wiki. It's a mind-blowing read about the worst industrial accident in US History. It makes the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire look like a company picnic.

(At least there was a made-for-tv movie about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire when I was a kid, so I heard of that one.)

[youtalkfunny]

While on the subject of obscure disasters, anyone not from Boston ever hear of the Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919?

It sounds like a joke, but there's nothing funny about it:

"A large molasses tank burst and a wave of molasses rushed through the streets at an estimated 35 mph (56 km/h), killing 21 and injuring 150."

""Molasses, waist deep, covered the street and swirled and bubbled about the wreckage. Here and there struggled a form — whether it was animal or human being was impossible to tell. Only an upheaval, a thrashing about in the sticky mass, showed where any life was.... Horses died like so many flies on sticky fly-paper. The more they struggled, the deeper in the mess they were ensnared. Human beings — men and women — suffered likewise."

[KotOD]

Is Lake Peigneur too well-known?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0DTgnOar6k

http://www.damninteresting.com/index.php?s=Peigneur


[ QUOTE ]
a Texaco oil rig was drilling down from the surface of the lake searching for petroleum. Due to a miscalculation, the drilling bit entered the mine, starting a remarkable chain of events, turning an almost 10 foot deep lake into the deepest lake in Louisiana, and changing it from fresh to salt water.

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The sucking force was so strong that it reversed the flow of a 12-mile-long canal which led out to the Gulf of Mexico, and dragged 11 barges from that canal into the swirling vortex, where they disappeared into the flooded mines below. It also overtook a manned tug on the canal, which struggled against the current for as long as possible before the crew had to leap off onto the canal bank and watch as the lake consumed their boat.

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The event permanently affected the ecosystem of the lake by greatly increasing the depth of the lake from 10 feet to 1300 feet at its greatest depth, and changing the lake from freshwater to saltwater.

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[SmokeyRidesAgain]

The Tay Rail Bridge

[ QUOTE ]
During a violent storm on the evening of 28 December 1879, the centre section of the bridge, known as the "High Girders", collapsed, taking with it a train that was running on its single track. More than 75 lives were lost, including Sir Thomas' son-in-law. (A common urban myth in Dundee is that Karl Marx would have been a passenger on the train had illness not prevented him from travelling.)

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_Rai...ridge_Disaster

[Dominic]

[ QUOTE ]
Is Lake Peigneur too well-known?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0DTgnOar6k

http://www.damninteresting.com/index.php?s=Peigneur


[ QUOTE ]
a Texaco oil rig was drilling down from the surface of the lake searching for petroleum. Due to a miscalculation, the drilling bit entered the mine, starting a remarkable chain of events, turning an almost 10 foot deep lake into the deepest lake in Louisiana, and changing it from fresh to salt water.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
The sucking force was so strong that it reversed the flow of a 12-mile-long canal which led out to the Gulf of Mexico, and dragged 11 barges from that canal into the swirling vortex, where they disappeared into the flooded mines below. It also overtook a manned tug on the canal, which struggled against the current for as long as possible before the crew had to leap off onto the canal bank and watch as the lake consumed their boat.

[/ QUOTE ]



[ QUOTE ]
The event permanently affected the ecosystem of the lake by greatly increasing the depth of the lake from 10 feet to 1300 feet at its greatest depth, and changing the lake from freshwater to saltwater.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

holy christ! that's amazing

[youtalkfunny]

[ QUOTE ]
Is Lake Peigneur too well-known?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's news to me.

[KotOD]

Anyone ever hear of the Peshtigo Fire?

http://www.rootsweb.com/~wioconto/Fire.htm
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=889

[ QUOTE ]
It was the largest natural fire in the history of the United States. By some estimates, nearly two thousand people were killed, and tens of thousands were left injured and homeless. The total destruction included entire cites, factories, mills, farms and hundreds of thousands of acres of timberland in two states. Yet, because it happened on the same day as a terrible, but far less devastating fire in a well publicized city to the south, little is known of this tragic disaster. But the scars of that October 8th night in 1871 are painfully visible nearly 130 years later, both on the land, and in the families who were there.

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Superheated winds and tornadoes pulled the heated air upward into the sky, allowing cooler air from Canada and the Western United States to rush in to fill the vacuum. At first these counter winds fed more oxygen to the fire, until ultimately the sucking force was strong enough to cause a major change in wind direction. The fire was blown back onto itself, and it soon starved from a lack of fresh fuel. A mere ninety minutes had passed since the inferno's arrival, but the entire town of Peshtigo had been reduced to smoldering rubble.

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More than 1,200 souls had perished in the Peshtigo Fire, although the true total will never be known due to the town records being destroyed in the blaze. It destroyed every building in town, save one newly-erected building with wood too green to burn. More than 1.25 million acres of forest and prairie were scorched before the winds died down and the fire burned itself out, and the fire caused millions of dollars in damage. Over 350 victims of the fire were buried together in a mass grave, their remnants too charred to be identified.

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A witness account:

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"By now the air was literally on fire, scattering its agony throughout the town. Men, women, and children, clad in nightgowns and caps, shrieked with horror when they saw their loved ones burned alive. The entire town was a blazing inferno; there was only one escape; the river! Thousands of people… pressed on with terror in their eyes, going further into the river, where they remained the next day and night. Families were separated; little babies tried desperately to secure footing in the mucky river… yet the river wasn't even safe, for swooping sparks and bits of fire dropped out of the sky burning entire bodies with an instant sweep!"

[/ QUOTE ]

[daveT]

I don't know what possessed me to think of sewage

A sewage reservoir burst next to a village in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, killing at least four people and injuring 20 in a torrent of putrid water and waste that buried their homes, officials said.

Two children, aged one and two, were among the dead in Gaza's small Bedouin Village when the sewage overflowed in what one resident called a man-made tsunami.

"WAVES LIKE MOUNTAINS"

[Joeyflops]

This one isn't that exciting , but my mom has told me about being awakened by the explosion when she was a kid.

The Roseburg (Oregon) Blast


On 7 August 1959, at approximately 1:00 am, the Gerretsen Building Supply Company caught fire. Firefighters soon arrived at the building, located near Oak and Pine street, to extinguish the fire. Earlier in the evening, a truck driver for the Pacific Powder Company, George Rutherford, had parked his explosives truck in front of the building, a fact which went unnoticed until shortly before the truck exploded, destroying buildings in an eight-block radius and severely damaging 30 more blocks.

The truck was loaded with two tons of dynamite and 4½ tons of the blasting agent nitro carbo nitrate. Rutherford had parked the truck after arranging his delivery for the following morning, despite warnings given to the Pacific Powder Company two days earlier not to leave such trucks unattended or park them in "congested areas." Fourteen people died in the blast and fire and 125 were injured. Damage was estimated at ten to twelve million dollars; the Powder company was eventually made to pay $1.2 million dollars in civil damages, but was acquitted of criminal wrongdoing.

Roseburg's downtown was rebuilt, primarily by businesses using money collected from insurance claims. The city built a new bridge over the South Umpqua River on parcels affected by the disaster. Since the incident, it is commonly referred to as the "Roseburg Blast" or simply "The Blast." In 2005, SOPTV produced a documentary examining the Blast and the experiences of those who were involved or witnessed it, entitled The Roseburg Blast: A Catastrophe and Its Heroes.

[Jailblazers]

Not really a disaster, but this invasion by mice practically destroyed this one farm in Australia. Pretty disgusting. Mice world record

Also, wtf shout-out to daughter trying to eat one. LOL

Edit: Also the Tacoma Bridge collapse is pretty interesting. Who would've thought that solid concrete and metal could bend so easily? Tacoma Bridge