20 years ago today - the world's deadliest subway disaster

It was 20 years ago today…..the world’s deadliest subway fire killed at least 289 people on the Baku Metro in Azerbaijan, as fire broke out on a train between two stations during the Saturday evening rush hour on 28 October 1995.

As smoke appeared in one of the five carriages, the lights went out, and the train came to a standstill. Passengers tried to get out of the coaches, but a set of doors jammed, and some were poisoned by fumes from burning fittings.

The driver had reported the incident and asked for the power to be switched off, but a number of people were electrocuted as they grabbed cables in an effort to escape. Among the dead were 28 children.

A government inquiry concluded that the fire was caused by an electrical fault, and two metro officials were sent to gaol, but others believed the real cause might have been a terrorist bomb. Incidentally, the Baku Metro, like the one in Moscow, is something of an architectural showpiece (see picture).

*For more, see A Disastrous History of the World.

Chechen warlord claims Moscow bomb

A Chechen warlord, Doku Umarov, has said that he ordered the suicide bombing of Moscow’s Domodedovo airport last month which killed 36 people. He said the attacks would continue until Russia left the Caucasus.

Russian investigators say the bomber was a 20 year old man from the North Caucasus. Umarov, who was a minister in the Chechen separatist government of the 1990’s, also claimed responsibility for an explosion on the Moscow Metro in March of last year in which 39 people died.

The two wars that the Chechens fought with Moscow to try to secure their independence resulted in their capital Grozny being turned into what the United Nations described as ‘the most destroyed city on the planet’. The first caused the deaths of up to 100,000 people – mainly Chechen civilians.

The Chechens have since mounted a number of terrorist attacks. One resulted in the deaths of 120 people in a Moscow theatre in 2002, while the seizing of a school in North Ossetia in 2004 cost the lives of 330, including 150 children. (See also my blog of April 16, 2009.)

*This is the latest review of my book A Disastrous History of the World.

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/leisure/books/8807420.A_Disastrous_History_of_the_World_by_John_Withington__Piatkus_paperback____9_99_/

The madness of crowds

At least 378 people have been killed, and more than 750 injured in a stampede at the end of a festival in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. A bridge across the Bassac river got overcrowded, and people panicked and began pushing from both ends.

More than two million people had been attending the festival, and the crush followed two of the highlights – a concert and a boat race. People were pushed to the ground and trampled. Some jumped in the river, while others climbed up and grabbed electric cables and got electrocuted. Many of the victims are believed to have been teenagers.

Fatal crushes have happened in many places, such as the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, where a late goal by Spartak Moscow in a UEFA Cup match with HFC Haarlem in 1982 caused some fans who had decided to leave to try and turn back. On an icy staircase, chaos ensued, and up to 340 people were killed.

At the Hajj in Mecca in 1990, a crush developed in a tunnel , and more than 1,400 pilgrims were killed, while perhaps the worst of all happened in an air raid shelter in Chungking in 1941. During a Japanese raid, the ventilation system broke down, so while there seemed to be a lull, many people slipped outside for a breath of fresh air. At that moment, the alarm sounded again, and up to 4,000 people were killed in the panic.

The Great Fire of Moscow

On this day…..198 years ago, Napoleon entered Moscow. It was virtually deserted, and the French army was unnerved by the eerie silence. In some parts of the city, fires were burning.

The next day, a strong wind began whipping up the flames, setting ablaze the stores on Red Square and soon burning debris had spread the fire to the Kremlin where the emperor had set up his headquarters. French soldiers interrupted their looting to help him out of the city.

By the following day, the whole of Moscow was ablaze, and many of the French army decided to follow their leader and get the hell out. Eventually rain put the flames out, but not before three-quarters of the city had gone up in smoke. An estimated 2,000 wounded Russians and up to 20,000 wounded French soldiers perished, plus an unknown number of Russian civilians.

Who started the fire? The Russians blamed the French, and the French blamed the Russians. Certainly the Russians had burned down depots holding ammunition, food and forage to deny them to the invaders. On the other hand, the French had been plundering and fires they started may have got out of control. For the story, see A Disastrous History of the World.

Russian droughts and Pakistani floods - the connection

I have already blogged about the Pakistan monsoon floods (Aug 11) which have killed at least 2,000 and driven perhaps 20 million from their homes, and Russia’s worst known heatwave (July 15) which has killed more than 50 people in wildfires, and has doubled the death rate in Moscow through soaring temperatures and acid smog.

So what is the connection? Air movements called Rossby waves are supposed to move through the upper atmosphere, but sometimes they get stuck. That has apparently happened this year, and when they do they trap the weather beneath them.

This has brought persistent high pressure over Russia, and troughs over Pakistan . Once you get this gridlock, the weather tends to be self-reinforcing. So as Russia warms up, the ground gets hotter and drier. Grass, brush and forest starts to catch fire, and the soot that’s produced heats the air even more.

Disturbingly, some scientists say that they are exactly the kind of trends you would expect to see with global warming, and that they will get worse. There’s more detail in an interesting article in the British magazine The Economist. http://www.economist.com/

Train bombings

The authorities in Russia are investigating whether last night’s derailment of the Moscow-St Petersburg express was caused by a bomb on the track. At least 25 people were killed, and another 19 are reported missing.

In 2007, an explosion on the same route derailed a train and injured 27 people. Two suspects were arrested. While in 2003 a suicide bomb on a commuter train in Stavropol Krai in southern Russia killed more than 40 people.

Russia’s worst rail disaster, though, came when the trans-Siberian gas pipeline ruptured near the city of Ufa in 1989. As two trains passed close to the leak, they set off a terrible explosion which produced a wasteland three miles long, and killed up to 800 passengers.

The worst terrorist attacks on trains were the Madrid bombings of 2004, in which 191 people died, and the Mumbai blasts of 2006 which cost 209 lives. (see my blog of Nov 26)

Chechnya - war is over?

Russia has announced the end of its “counter-terrorism” operation in Chechnya, claiming that life there has been "normalised to a large degree". When the old Soviet Union fell apart, the Chechens tried to grab their independence, and there followed two Russian invasions. Now the country is ruled by a 32 year old pro-Moscow hard man, Ramzan Kadyrov, who has been rewarded with hand-outs of hundreds of millions of pounds to re-build the country.

The Chechens certainly needed it. The wars with Russia had turned their capital Grozny into what the UN described as "the most destroyed city on the planet". The first war from 1994-6 resulted in a humiliating defeat for Moscow, and the deaths of up to 100,000 people – most of them Chechen civilians, but the Russians effectively won the second war in 1999-2000.

The Chechens tried to retaliate by taking the battle into Russia. They seized 900 hostages at a Moscow theatre in 2002; 120 of whom were killed as Russian troops tried to free them. The next year suicide bombers hit a Moscow rock festival, killing 16 people, and an attack on a school at Beslan in North Ossetia in 2004 cost the lives of 330 people including 150 children.

Mr Kadyrov claims that terrorist attacks have now been halted, but thousands of people have disappeared, and his government is accused of kidnapping, torture and murder.