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.)

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."

Is Lake Peigneur too well-known?

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

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

The Tay Rail Bridge



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

holy christ! that's amazing

Years ago I saw this whole story on either the Learning Channel or the Discovery channel. It was a very well done documentary about a big horrific event at the time I hadn't ever heard of.

I've posted this one before, but it cetainly fits this thread:

The Boston Molasses Flood (1919)

It's news to me.

I had heard of Texas City a long time ago; I think it was a part of the Wrath of God series on the History Channel. I'd heard of the Lake Peigneur incident as well, from Modern Marvels (Engineering Disasters). I honestly think that one has got to be the sickest disaster ever, given that no one died and the bizarre effects of it--turning canals around, sucking may acres of land in, creating temporary waterfalls and geysers, etc.

Another one: it wasn't until very recently that I learned what shape the Aral Sea is in. This used to be the fourth-largest lake in the world, and it's lost four-fifths of its water over the last fifty years (due to river water being diverted to cotton fields), and the countries bordering it are just too poor to do too much. There are fishing villages dozens of miles from the water now:

I started to get curious when during the coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings I heard several announcers call it the worst school shooting, but not the worst incidence of school violence in US history. Wikipedia provides us with the answer of what was the worst and I had never heard of it


Bath School Disaster

WOW! I had no idea.

Is the Halifax Harbor explosion obscure enough? I know it's in the fore of Canadian history, but few people in my circle know about it.

http://www.cbc.ca/halifaxexplosion/

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

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=389#more-389

A boat carrying
Runs into another and catches fire. The resulting explosion

From 13 miles away:



And, with any disaster involving indomitable human beings, selfless heroism in the face of death:

How do we not not hear about this?

Most people have heard of Krakatoa, but I don't think many have heard of Mount Tambora, which exploded in 1815 and killed at least 71,000 people.

Dust clogged the atmosphere worlwide to the point that 1816 was called The Year Without a Summer and the Norther Hemisphere suffered the biggest famine of the 19th century.

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

Lake Nyos seems to fit the bill

"a limnic eruption occurred at Lake Nyos which triggered the sudden release of about 1.6 million tonnes of CO2. The gas rushed down two nearby valleys, displacing all the air and suffocating up to 1,800 people within 20 km of the lake, mostly rural villagers, as well as 3,500 livestock. About 4,000 inhabitants fled the area, and many of these developed respiratory problems, burns, and paralysis as a result of the gases."

The video is ridiculous. I don't understand why this isn't common knowledge - They turned a 10 foot deep pond into a 1300 foot deep salt water lake!

I knew that it was almost gone, I didn't realize that they have started to save it. I can't stop reading about this now.

Not exactly a pond...

Very crazy though especially all the barges sucked in. Great thread.

Reading about the Aral Sea now leads me to Lake Chad

Compared to the new body, it was a pond

As the canal refilled the crater over the next two days, nine of the sunken barges popped back to the surface like corks, though the drilling rigs and tug were left entombed in the ruined salt mine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clevela..._Gas_Explosion

"The resulting gas leak, explosion and fires killed 130 people and destroyed a one square mile area on Cleveland, Ohio's east side."

It's mindboggling how much the media affects our perception of the world. They canceled baseball games, threw piles of federal money at the whole state, etc. over the I35 thing which killed 13 people. Before this thread most of us had never heard of disasters that killed 600.

Hay guise has anyone mentioned the Boston Molasses thing yet?

Anyway, some interesting finds in this thread. I wonder how concerned we should be about these huge masses of inland water drying up.

I used to go to Lake Powell every Labor Day (the large body of water upriver from the Grand Canyon that was created by the Glen Canyon Dam, much to the chagrin of Edward Abbey). I think their level is back up a bit but we went five straight years and every year the water level was noticeably lower until the last year we had to take a huge detour through some other canyons because the main channel had dried up in a spot. It was weird looking up at our campsite from a few years earlier and noticing it was now about 30-40 feet above water.

touche

Tuckmaster Flash, the molasses incident was mentioned in the 2nd post. Talk about a bad way to go...

edit: hmm perhaps you were joking there -- I have been moving for the past few days and my detectors are offline due to lack of sleep. The 'hay guise' made me reconsider...

I was being a smartass because YTF posted about it and then dcasper came along and posted about the exact same thing. I like (gently) calling people out when it looks like they didn't read the thread and make a duplicate post.

Does the Great London Beer Flood count?

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/beer.asp
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1355155


People really buck up in times of tragedy

I know that there was a killer fog in London, but this one is local to me:

The Donora Fog


http://www.eltoroairport.org/issues/fog.html

http://www.actionpa.org/fluoride/donora-fog.html