The Molasses Disaster; if you like strange, but true, stories...

[marzipanni]

>snip

At about 12:30, with a sound described as a sort of muffled roar, the giant molasses tank came apart. It seemed to rise and then split, the rivets popping in a way that reminded many ex-soldiers of machine-gun fire. And then a wet, brown hell broke loose, flooding downtown Boston.

Spill a jar of kitchen molasses. Then imagine an estimated 14,000 tons of the thick, sticky fluid running wild. It left the ruptured tank in a choking brown wave, 15 feet high, wiping out everything that stood in its way. One steel section of the tank was hurled across Commercial Street, neatly knocking out one of the uprights supporting the El. An approaching train screeched to a stop just as the track ahead sagged into the onrushing molasses.
more-
http://www.mv.com/ipusers/arcade/molpark.htm

[JaySherman]

1. To bring politics into it for a second...

I find the following quote very fascinating: "not so wild a possibility in those early days of Bolshevism—bombs had already blasted a few American industrial plants."

Replace the words "Bolshevism" and "industrial plants" with "terrorism" and "skyscrapers." What do you get? The same shit going on almost a century later.

Times really haven't changed that much. Only the boogyman is different.

[amber dog democrat]

2. It looks more like someone skipped a static pressure test.

This could happen today, but i woudl have hated to be the structural engineer who signed off on the tank. Oil tanks occaisionally fail for much the same reasons.