Peacetime ammunition explosions

At least 32 people have been killed in a series of explosions at munitions depots at an army base in Tanzania’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam. The blasts at the Gongola Mboto base went on for several hours.

Most of those killed were people living near the base, as debris flew through the air. The explosions caused panic because residents had no clear information on what was happening. At least 4,000 are said to be sheltering at the National Stadium.

Two years ago, explosions at the Mbagala army base, near Dar es Salaam, killed more than 20 people.

An even more devastating explosion at an army base was the one that ripped through the Ikeja cantonment, near Lagos in Nigeria, on 27 January, 2002. Houses were flattened, and shells, grenades and bullets set off. Perhaps 2,000 people died. For more details, see A Disastrous History of the World.

*This is a television report that I did in 1975 that has just turned up on the net!

http://www.macearchive.org/Media.html?Title=23148#

An aftermath and an anniversary

January 10, 2009
Sources in the United States and Pakistan are claiming that two men America says were involved in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania have been killed. Kenyans Usama al-Kini and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan were said to have been hit by a missile from a US drone in Pakistan’s South Waziristan, close to the Afghan border. The bombing in Nairobi killed 257 people, only 12 of them Americans, while the one in Dar es Salaam claimed a total of 11 victims. More details on the bombings are available in A Disastrous History of the World.

On this day....in 1838, London’s Royal Exchange was burned down for the second time. The weather was bitterly cold and firemen were hampered as their hoses froze. A large crowd gathered to watch, and the biggest cheer came when porters flung a bag of sovereigns out of the window and some of the onlookers helped themselves. You can find the full story in The Disastrous History of London.