It’s a busy Friday morning in the African city of Nairobi. Then, the air is shattered by a massive explosion. A huge bomb detonates outside the American Embassy demolishing a neighbouring seven-storey building. Hundreds of people are buried and thousands are injured. Seconds from Disaster s2e18: American Embassy Bombing, Nairobi
The driver steers the truck straight at the fence. As rescuers arrive they are confronted with total chaos: the force of the huge blast has brought the Ufundi building crashing to the ground. ibid.
In Tanzania witnesses say that two-thirds of the US Embassy in Das-es-Salaam was destroyed. ibid. US TV news
North Vietnam, July 1967: America is bogged down in a messy ground war in North Vietnam. The body count is rising fast. Over 6,600 US military personnel have died. Seconds from Disaster s3e2: Aircraft Carrier Explosion
Sailing to her first tour of duty in Vietnam is the biggest of them all: USS Forrestal … a crew of 5,400 men. ibid.
The explosives are in poor condition … A flash and a loud bang; jet fuel stills on to the flight deck and spreads rapidly; a massive fire rips through the Skyhawk planes … The world’s biggest aircraft carrier, USS Forrestal, is on fire. ibid.
She lists badly and sailors struggle to fight fire above and below decks … They jettison multi-million-dollar planes and tons of bombs into the ocean … It takes another 16 hours to extinguish the fires below deck … 134 men are dead. ibid.
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, National Geographic 2006
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.
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, National Geographic 2006
‘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.
[Roger] Beaujolais [engineer] had actually tried to stop the launch … All four managers agreed to launch. ibid.
April 20th 2010 5 p.m.: The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig: An explosion rips through an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The survivors can’t stop the blowout and flee. 2 hours earlier a test showed the oil well was safe. Seconds from Disaster s5e5: The Deepwater Horizon
Crude oil and gas continue to surge from the well feeding the flames and explosions. The emergency disconnect has not worked. Most workers escape using the rig’s lifeboats. ibid.
The drill crew missing an early opportunity to realise the well could blow out. ibid.
Nitrogen foam: Halliburton do not expressly alert BP to the result … The cement foam is seriously unstable. ibid.
2004: Terrifying explosions rock New York City … The manhole cover hits the car with the force of a missile … The pressure from these escaping gasses builds up in the manhole. Strange Evidence s1e3, History 2024
Tianjin, China, 2015: A massive shockwave hurtles towards a terrified driver … ‘A second explosion much larger than the first’ … Hundreds of shipping containers, each twenty-five tons, are blasted into the sky like fireworks … Forty minutes before the first explosion, fire breaks out near a warehouse storing Calcium Carbide … Another dangerous chemical at the docks: Ammonium Nitrate. Strange Evidence s1e9, 2017