One of America’s biggest oil refineries. 1,800 people are busy at work. Without warning, a massive explosion rocks the plant. The blast is felt 8 kilometres away. Seconds from Disaster s3e10: Texas Oil Explosion
America’s third biggest refinery is left a smouldering wreck … 170 people are injured; 15 are dead; 11 died in the trailer. ibid.
Liquid was seen spewing out of the blowdown stack, and the pickup truck was parked less than nine metres away … A single spark from the running engine is all it would take to ignite the vapour. ibid.
1974: America is hit by the most destructive tornado outbreak in recorded history. 148 tornadoes rip through 13 states leaving millions of dollars of damage … 5,500 people are injured; 330 are dead. Seconds from Disaster s3e11: Tornado Outbreak
When space shuttle Challenger launches on a January morning in 1986, a key engineer is sure a catastrophe is coming. He thinks the ship is going to explode. 73 seconds later disaster strikes. 7 astronauts die in front of their families and millions of television viewers. Seconds from Disaster s3e12: Space Shuttle Explosion
‘Could they have made it? That question haunts me.’ ibid. Nasa dude
The shuttle has never made good on its promise to provide a routine bus service to space. ibid.
Bad weather had delayed launch for over a week. ibid.
Suddenly, Challenger is engulfed in a massive fireball. ibid.
The right solid rocket booster malfunctioned … Due to the freezing temperatures, the O-Rings in the right booster’s lower most field joint did not enlarge as they should have. ibid.
‘Something else must have been going on beyond a simple O-Ring disaster.’ ibid. expert
[Roger] Beaujolais [engineer] had actually tried to stop the launch … All four managers agreed to launch. ibid.
A Caribbean island paradise and a volcano wakes after lying dormant for centuries. With the lives of 10,500 people at stake, volcanologists rush to the scene. Then a catastrophic eruption sends an avalanche of re-hot rock and ash cascading down the mountain. Seconds from Disaster s3e13: Eruption at Monserrat
Montserrat lies directly on a geological subduction zone; this is one of the most seismically active parts of the planet’s crust. ibid.
A month after the first blast, another larger phreatic eruption fires a cloud of ash, mud and steam two kilometres into the air. The vibration rocks Montserrat. The locals stare nervously at the darkening skies. The south-west of the island is showered in a thick cloud of volcanic dust. ibid.
Pyroclastic Flow: They have caused over 40,000 deaths in the last century alone. ibid.
The volcano hasn’t finished yet: nearly three months later it fires its first pyroclastic flow down the eastern slope of the mountain heading for the coastline. The flow travels just two kilometres and no-one is hurt, but it is clear that volcanic activity is intensifying again. ibid.
The island experiences its first magmatic eruption. ibid.
It’s prepared to blow with a deadly force that will destroy this island paradise. ibid.
A daring helicopter rescue gets underway. ibid.
The scene is like a modern-day Pompeii. ibid.
19 people lost their lives on 25th June. ibid.
9/11/2001: Four planes change America and the world for ever. 19 men armed with boxcutter knives strike a stunning blow against the mightiest superpower on the planet. Seconds from Disaster s4e1: 9/11, National Geographic 2011
In the space of 102 minutes, the four hijacked planes have claimed the lives of almost 3,000 people. ibid.
December 7th 1941: An aerial strike force gathers and executes a surprise on the US Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor. Its aim: to bring a nation to its knees. Thousands die in one of the most devastating defeats in military history. Seconds from Disaster s4e2: Attack on Pearl Harbor
In spite of their often heroic efforts, the sailors struggled to cope with the combined aerial assault of low level torpedo bombers, dive bombers and high altitude bombers. ibid.
Flying in precise formation, ten high-level bombers target USS Arizona. ibid.
20 to 30 minutes after the first wave of bombers hit, another 170 aircraft strike … The other main targets are the airfields. ibid.
Over 180 US aircraft are destroyed with more damaged. In total 4 American battleships are sunk, 4 damaged, and 13 more major ships destroyed or seriously damaged. In return, the Japanese have lost just 29 planes. ibid.
It has in fact totally failed … The attack is launched even though there is no chance of hitting the US Navy’s vital aircraft carriers. It is a critical mistake. ibid.
Ship repair yards were ignored … ‘18 of those ships were salvaged within a few months’ … The attack misses another important target … In the end it’s the submarines operating out of Pearl Harbor that strangle Japan into submission totally cutting it off from supplies of food and resources. But perhaps the most devastating blow the Japanese could have struck on the day was an attack on the US Pacific fleet’s fuel storage facilities. ibid.
Nagumo’s decision not to launch the second strike is the final critical mistake in the execution of the attack on Pearl Harbor. ibid.
London, Rush Hour, a train leaves Paddington station. Another train approaches. When two commuter trains collide investigators must discover what went wrong in the UK’s worst rail disaster in a decade. Seconds from Disaster s4e3: Paddington Train Disaster, National Geographic 2011
They collide at a combined speed of over 200 kph. ibid.
31 people are dead; and more than 400 injured. ibid.
The automatic warning system has an inherent design flaw. ibid.
A difficult signal for a driver to see clearly. ibid.
A cold-blooded murder in broad daylight triggered by an event that took place 36,000 feet. When the trip of a lifetime turns into the worst civilian plane crash in German history. Seconds from Disaster s4e4: Collision at 35,000 Feet
Uberlingen, Germany: How two highly advanced aircraft Bashkirian Tupolev T-u 154 & a DHL Boeing 757] could be in exactly the same spot at exactly the same time? ibid.
1998: A US military jet [Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowler] severs the wire of a cable car in the Italian Alps. The crew may face court marshal for the deaths of 20 people. Investigators must discover how a routine training flight ended in catastrophe. Seconds from Disaster s4e5: Cable Car Collision
The people of the town instantly know something is very wrong. ibid.
The damaged Prowler jet is almost impossible to fly … They’ll have to make an emergency landing. ibid.
They took a video camera on the flight. The tape is either blank or it’s been erased … It challenges the crew’s story. ibid.
Crews have not been properly briefed on changes to the low-level regulations. ibid.
Reductions in crew training, errors on the map, and information not reaching the crew – these are systemic errors. ibid.
Bhopal, central India, 1984: City residents wake choking and unable to breathe. Stampeding in panic, thousands die, poisoned by the very air about them. An American-owned factory, Union Carbide, supposedly rigged with safety systems. It triggers the world’s worst industrial accident. Seconds from Disaster s4e6: Bhopal
Minor gas leaks are a regular occurrence and the workers have had to learn to live with the choking effects. ibid.
In minutes the pressure in the chemical storage tanks has shot off the scale … Operators are powerless to stop toxic gas pumping into the night sky. ibid.
‘We had no antidote and no information from Union Carbide.’ ibid. local hospital doctor
Northern Japan, March 11th 2011: The earthquake continues for 5 minutes. It’s felt 230 km away in Tokyo … The most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan. Seconds from Disaster s5e1: Fukushima, National Geographic 2012
The first news pictures show widespread devastation throughout the north of the county. ibid.
Fukushima Power Station bears the full force of the Tsunami … A massive aftershock rocks the plant; almost immediately the building which houses Reactor No. 1 explodes … An even larger explosion blows the building that houses Reactor No. 3 … And the very next day another explosion causes a huge fire in Reactor building 4. ibid.
May 1941: A storm rages in the Atlantic ocean. A squadron of antiquated biplanes take on the most powerful warship the world has ever seen: Bismarck. Seconds from Disaster s5e2: The Bismarck
The Hood opens fire … Shells reign down in the Denmark Strait. One salvo hits the Hood, pierces six decks of steel and explodes in the ship’s magazine, detonating three-hundred tons of ammunition. The huge ship splits in two and sinks in just two minutes. Over fourteen hundred sailors lose their lives. ibid.
On May 27th the British opened fire … Within minutes a hit destroys the command bridge … The British ships close in … The Bismarck lists hard to port and capsizes. ibid.