Munitions explosions

While I was away one of the stories I missed was an intriguing item from the Economist on September 29 about explosions at ammunition depots.   Something I have already blogged about on many occasions – see below.

Last month saw a blast at a weapons store at Afyonkarahisar in Turkey that killed 25 soldiers, while in March, in one of the worst munitions accidents ever, 250 people perished in Congo-Brazzaville, as debris was flung over a 2 mile radius.

Since global records started being kept in 1995, 4,600 people have been killed, and last year was the worst single year with 442 deaths in 46 explosions.    Many stores are located near towns, and those in Africa, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union are often poorly run.

Perhaps the deadliest munitions disaster of all time happened in Nigeria in 2002, when a fire began at an open air market in a barracks and then spread to the armaments store.   Perhaps 2,000 people perished, many of them crushed to death in the panic to escape.

 (See also my blogs of May 27, 2010; Feb 17, 2011; March 5, May 20, July 25, and Aug 2, 2012.)

Transporting explosives

At least 20 workers have been killed in a blast as they were working on a new road tunnel in China’s Hunan province.    State media says the accident happened while explosives were being unloaded from a vehicle.    Another four workers were pulled out of the tunnel alive.

The country is often criticised for poor safety standards.    Last November, three vehicles carrying explosives caught fire and blew up in south-western China, killing at least seven people and injuring about 200.

Perhaps the deadliest ever incident involving the transporting of explosives happened at Cali in Colombia in 1956.      A convoy of seven army lorries loaded with dynamite had been parked outside a barracks on the night of August 6, and in the early hours of the next morning, an explosion ripped through them.

It flattened the barracks and eight blocks of buildings, killing at least 1,300 people.    The cause was never clearly established.   At first, the military government said it was sabotage, but others thought it was an accident perhaps caused by the trucks overheating.

* Here I am in 1974 on the front line of the social revolution, exposing sex discrimnation at a bus depot.   http://www.macearchive.org/archive.html?Title=21182