All you engineering disaster buffs read this

Dennis Toy · Post by **Dennis Toy** » 2002-12-08 11:21pm

This contains a video of a 1988 explosion at a chemical plant near Las Vegas. The video of it is here.

http://www.exponent.com/multimedia/cases/hend.html

Who wants to bet that this was safer than Star trek Warp cores

Hyperion · Post by **Hyperion** » 2002-12-08 11:32pm

i would NOT be surprised.

and it was probably harder to make happen then the wonderful ST exploding unfuzed consoles...

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-12-08 11:34pm

Star Trek engineers would have built a daycare in the place.

PS. explosive yield equivalent to roughly 0.7 kilotons. Hot damn!

Dennis Toy · Post by **Dennis Toy** » 2002-12-08 11:45pm

Watch the video and listen to how the shockwave delays hitting the microphone and rocking the camera..

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2002-12-08 11:50pm

IIRC, this was the site that produced fuel for NASA's shuttle program. When it shut down for a while after the Challenger blew up, no one told them to stop producing the fuel. So they kept producing it but not delivering and just stockpiled it on site. Then they had a fire.

Drewcifer · Post by **Drewcifer** » 2002-12-08 11:56pm

IIRC, there was a man still at the plant when one of the blasts went off. Amazingly, he survived, albeit with ruptured ears drums and a few broken bones from being thrown 20-30 feet. That clip was on RealTV, one of those 'amazing videos from around the world' shows.

There's another amazing video like that of a gasoline tanker truck in Mexico that explodes in a fireball that was something like 20 stories tall. If I can find a link, I'll post it.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2002-12-09 12:06am

There is an old 60's - 70's clip somewhere on my hard drive, where a whale was beached and died. Civil planners wondered what they should do with it, and the decision was made to 'blow it up' hoping that it would totally vaporise the thing. Anyway they were wrong, they stacked as much dynamite as they thought neccessary, and then pulled the trigger. The result; whale meat rained down EVERYWHERE denting car roofs and knocking over by-standers, very amussing.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2002-12-09 12:22am

Darth Wong wrote:Star Trek engineers would have built a daycare in the place.

PS. explosive yield equivalent to roughly 0.7 kilotons. Hot damn!

If it weren't for the smoke from the first explosion, you'd see a pretty clear mushroom cloud rising from the second blast. As it is you can make it out fairly well.

This is what a 1.2 kiloton burst buried at 67 feet looks like for comparision.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2002-12-09 03:30pm

Big badda boom.

But nothing to that ammunition ship in Canada one day at the turn of the century...

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2002-12-09 03:45pm

I remember seeing this on TV. Holy crap what an explosion. Its amazing to see the shock wave spread across the desert floor.

Post by **Kuja** » 2002-12-09 03:47pm

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!!