Largest artificial non-nuclear explosions
The Dutch launched four large hellburners (explosive fire ships filled with gunpowder and rocks) to destroy the bridge and thereby isolate the city from reinforcement.
About nine o'clock in the morning of 30 May 1626, an explosion of combustibles at the Wanggongchang Armory in Ming-era Beijing, China, destroyed almost everything within an area of two square kilometres (0.77 sq mi) surrounding the site.
[6] On 16 February 1646, 80 barrels (5.72 tons) of gunpowder were accidentally ignited by a stray spark during the Battle of Torrington in the English Civil War, destroying the church in which the magazine was located and killing several Royalist guards and a large number of Parliamentarian prisoners who were being kept there.
The cause of the explosion was most likely a shot fired by a famed Italian artillery officer and Franciscan friar, "Fiery" Gabriel, which penetrated into the underground ammunition dump.
[7] The explosion, heard more than 100 miles (160 km) away,[8] destroyed the entire post which was supplied initially with "three thousand stand of arms, from five to six hundred barrels of powders and a great quantity of fixed ammunition, shot[s], shells".
[7] On 30 December 1848, in Multan during the Second Anglo-Sikh war, a mortar shell hit 180 tonnes of gunpowder stored in a mosque, causing an explosion and many casualties.
On 10 October 1885 in New York City, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers detonated 300,000 pounds (150 t) of explosives on Flood Rock, annihilating the island, in order to clear the Hell Gate tidal strait for the benefit of East River shipping traffic.
Municipal firefighters and crew from other vessels boarded Cabo Machichaco to help fight the fire, while local dignitaries and a large crowd of people watched from the shore.
On 7 June 1917, a series of large British mines, containing a total of more than 455 tons of ammonal explosive, was detonated beneath German lines on the Messines-Wytschaete ridge.
Approximately 140 workers – mainly young women, known as the 'Chilwell Canaries' because contact with picric acid turned their skin yellow – were killed, though the true number has never been established.
On 4 October 1918, an ammunition plant – operated by the T. A. Gillespie Company and located in New Jersey in the Morgan area of Sayreville in Middlesex County – exploded and caused a fire.
[34] On 21 September 1921, a BASF silo filled with 4,500 tonnes of fertilizer exploded, killing about 560, largely destroying Oppau, Germany, and causing damage more than 30 km (19 mi) away.
On 17 July 1932, a train carrying 320 to 330 tons of dynamite from the De Beers factory at Somerset West to the Witwatersrand exploded and flattened the small town of Leeudoringstad in South Africa.
15 of the Imperial Japanese Army's Kinya ammunition dump in Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture, Japan, suffered a catastrophic explosion, the sound of which could be heard throughout the Keihan area.
On 20 April 1944, the Dutch steam trawler ST Voorbode, loaded with 124,000 kilograms (124 t) of explosives, caught fire and exploded in Norway at the quay in the centre of Bergen.
On 10 November 1944, USS Mount Hood exploded in Seeadler Harbor at Manus Island in Australian New Guinea, with an estimated 3,800 tons of ordnance material on board.
On 27 November 1944, the RAF Ammunition Depot at Fauld, Staffordshire, became the site of the largest explosion in the UK, when 3,700 tonnes of bombs stored in underground bunkers covering 17,000 m2 (180,000 sq ft) exploded en masse.
On 28 December 1944, while transporting ammunition to Mindoro, Philippines, the Liberty ship SS John Burke was hit by a Japanese kamikaze aircraft, and disintegrated in a tremendous explosion with the loss of all crew.
More than 420 tons of explosives in transit at the Raritan River Port in South Amboy, New Jersey detonated due to unknown causes, killing 31 people and injuring more than 350.
[59] On 17 September 1964, the offshore disposal of the ship Village, containing 7,348 short tons (6,666 t) of obsolete munitions, caused unexpected detonations five minutes after sinking off New Jersey.
[60] A series of tests, Operation Sailor Hat, was performed off Kaho'olawe Island, Hawaii, in 1965, using conventional explosives to simulate the shock effects of nuclear blasts on naval vessels.
The benefits of increased production were short-lived while the costs of managing acid mine drainage due to the sulfide ore body being exposed to oxygen continue to the present.
On 11 November 1977, a freight train carrying 40 tons of dynamite in South Korea from Gwangju suddenly exploded at Iri station (present-day Iksan), Jeollabuk-do province.
On 11 July 1978, an overloaded tanker truck carrying 23 tons of liquefied propylene crashed and ruptured in Spain, emitting a white cloud of ground-hugging fumes which spread into a nearby campground and discothèque before reaching an ignition source and exploding.
On 23 March 2005, there was a hydrocarbon leak due to incorrect operations during a refinery startup which caused a vapour cloud explosion when ignited by a running vehicle engine.
The main explosion, involving more than 400 tons of propellant in containers, destroyed hundreds of houses within a few kilometres from the depot and broke windows in cars on the Tirana-Durrës highway.
On 13 and 23 November 2009, 120 tons of Soviet-era artillery shells blew in two separate sets of explosions at the 31st Arsenal of the Caspian Sea Flotilla's ammunition depot near Ulyanovsk, killing ten people.
[86] On 11 March 2011 in Japan, the Tōhoku earthquake caused natural gas containers in the Cosmo Oil Refinery of Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture, to catch fire, destroying storage tanks and injuring six people.
[91][92][93] On 6 July 2013, a train of 73 tank cars of light crude oil ran away down a slight incline, after being left unattended for the night, when the air brakes failed after the locomotive engines were shut down following a small fire.
A Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian weapons depot in Toropets, Tver Oblast, caused an explosion large enough to be detected as an earthquake by monitoring stations.
