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-   -   Russian Munitions Plant Explosion (https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/624306-russian-munitions-plant-explosion.html)

ORAC 6th Aug 2019 07:26

Russian Munitions Plant Explosion
 
Local city of over 100,000 evacuated....

https://www.snafu-solomon.com/2019/0...near-city.html



jolihokistix 6th Aug 2019 08:29

How many of these have they suffered in recent years?

Downwind.Maddl-Land 6th Aug 2019 08:41

Wow! That video gives one a vague idea of what must have prevailed at the Fauld underground explosion in 1944.

Treble one 6th Aug 2019 09:25

Would it be standard procedure to evacuate a town after the event, if it was conventional explosive?

jolihokistix 6th Aug 2019 11:43

"Around a dozen accidents have happened in explosives factories across Russia since 2014, according to the TASS news agency. "

https://www.dw.com/en/massive-explos...ion/a-49903358

superplum 6th Aug 2019 11:46


Originally Posted by Treble one (Post 10537959)
Would it be standard procedure to evacuate a town after the event, if it was conventional explosive?

But is it after the event? We have no knowledge of the causal factors or if the "fire" is extinguished. Residual heat may well play a part in this. Personally, I wouldn't relish living in an area where random shells may still be falling.

Martin the Martian 6th Aug 2019 12:26


Sorry. Somebody had to.

MPN11 6th Aug 2019 13:45

“Whatever you do, don’t drop it Pike.”

Pontius Navigator 6th Aug 2019 13:45


Originally Posted by superplum (Post 10538087)
But is it after the event? We have no knowledge of the causal factors or if the "fire" is extinguished. Residual heat may well play a part in this. Personally, I wouldn't relish living in an area where random shells may still be falling.

Looking at the video which happened to be pointing in the right direction there is much more to this story.

Looking at the mass of smoke before the fireball it looks as if there was already a huge fire. The evacuation may have preceded the explosion.

jolihokistix 6th Aug 2019 14:05

The BBC reports that it is/was an old dump of 55,000 artillery shells awaiting disposal.

How would you get them all to go off like that in one pure flash? You wouldn’t, but the camera was already pointing that way so PN must be on the money.

DW’s linked alumina story above seems to be a much more likely part of the equation.

weemonkey 6th Aug 2019 21:37


Originally Posted by jolihokistix (Post 10537920)
How many of these have they suffered in recent years?

Isn't it Ukranian ones though.

Asturias56 7th Aug 2019 11:21

Many years ago I had to sort out some old explosives - as they said you could jump on them , set fire to them etc etc without a problem - but it was not unknown for a warehouse to suddenly disintegrate in a big bang without warning -

You can never be sure about old explosives...............

Chugalug2 7th Aug 2019 11:30


Originally Posted by Asturias56 (Post 10538987)
Many years ago I had to sort out some old explosives - as they said you could jump on them , set fire to them etc etc without a problem - but it was not unknown for a warehouse to suddenly disintegrate in a big bang without warning -

You can never be sure about old explosives...............

Which reminds us of this ship load of old explosives...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery

ORAC 7th Aug 2019 13:43


Asturias56 7th Aug 2019 14:32

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larges...ear_explosions

has a pretty comprehensive list - and a lot were "accidental"

Amazing how they drop off the collective memory compared with a terrorist attack for example.....................

eg On 21 September 2001, an explosion occurred at a fertilizer factory in Toulouse, France. The disaster caused 31 deaths, 2,500 seriously wounded, and 8,000 light injuries. The blast (estimated yield of 20–40 tons of TNT, comparable in scale to the military test Operation Blowdown) was heard 80 km away (50 miles) and registered 3.4 on the Richter magnitude scale. It damaged about 30,000 buildings over about two-thirds of the city, for an estimated total cost of about €2 billion

Pontius Navigator 7th Aug 2019 17:55


Originally Posted by Asturias56 (Post 10539160)

Amazing how they drop off the collective memory compared with a terrorist attack for example.......

Or never make it.

msbbarratt 7th Aug 2019 21:15


Originally Posted by Asturias56 (Post 10539160)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larges...ear_explosions

has a pretty comprehensive list - and a lot were "accidental"

Amazing how they drop off the collective memory compared with a terrorist attack for example.....................

eg On 21 September 2001, an explosion occurred at a fertilizer factory in Toulouse, France. The disaster caused 31 deaths, 2,500 seriously wounded, and 8,000 light injuries. The blast (estimated yield of 20–40 tons of TNT, comparable in scale to the military test Operation Blowdown) was heard 80 km away (50 miles) and registered 3.4 on the Richter magnitude scale. It damaged about 30,000 buildings over about two-thirds of the city, for an estimated total cost of about €2 billion

To the best of my knowledge (gleaned first hand by locals out there) it still hasn't been fully settled as to whether or not that was a terrorist attack, or an industrial accident. The French government ultimately forks out the compensation (refunding the insurance compnay) if it's the former, the insurance company otherwise. So it was in the interests of the government that the official investigation labelled it an industrial accident, something the insurance company wasn't too happy about...

They were lucky; whilst it was quite a large amount that went up, immediately adjacent was a much large quantity that didn't. It was also adjacent to Arianespace's site where they make the fuel for their solid boosters, so there was another healthy collection of highly volatile material just waiting to go boom. All in all, it could have been substantially worse than it was.

It was heard and felt 55 miles away.


tartare 7th Aug 2019 23:38

Gosh, that pressure wave is something to behold...

ORAC 8th Aug 2019 18:52

And another, but this time nuclear.....

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/r...-bay-gv5bcn0p3

Radiation leak after explosion at Nyonoksa missile research site closes major port of Dvina Bay

All shipping was banned from a major Russian port for a month today after an explosion at a secretive military facility triggered a radiation leak.

Following the blast at a missile research facility near Nyonoksa, which killed two people and injured others, Russia closed off the nearby Dvina Bay area of the White Sea to shipping.

A spike in background radiation was recorded in the nearby city of Severodvinsk in the Arkhangelsk region, the state news agency Tass reported, citing municipal officials. “A short-term rise in background radiation was recorded at noon in Severodvinsk,” Ksenia Yudina, a spokeswoman for the city authorities, said. She said that radiation levels in the city, which has a population of 185,000, had decreased to a safe range within a few hours of the explosion

Unconfirmed reports also said that there was an increase in radiation levels in Nyonoksa.

Igor Orlov, the Arkhangelsk region’s governor, confirmed that there had been “an incident” at the facility, where Russia tests ballistic and cruise missiles carried by the navy’s nuclear-powered submarines. Mr Orlov said that regional hospitals had been put on alert. Russia’s defence ministry said the blast involved a liquid-propellant rocket engine. It did not say what had caused the explosion or exactly where it had taken place. The Kremlin has not commented.

The defence ministry sought to quell fears of radiation pollution, saying: “No harmful substances were emitted into the atmosphere and the radiation levels are normal.” Russian officials said the situation was being monitored hourly but that there was at present no risk to human health. “There’s no radioactive contamination,” a spokeswoman for the Arkhangelsk region said.

The defence ministry also said that six people, including military specialists and civilian engineers, were injured in the blast and the blaze that followed. RIA Novosti, another state media outlet, cited a security service source as saying that 15 people had been injured. Five of them are reported to be in a critical condition and have been taken to hospitals in Arkhangelsk.

The defence ministry said that it had turned down an offer of assistance from emergency service workers and would undertake the clean-up operation on its own.

Tass reported that the blast took place aboard a vessel, which then caught fire. The defence ministry has not commented.

Russia said it would close off an area of the nearby White Sea to shipping for a month after the blast, Interfax cited the port of Arkhangelsk as saying.......

jolihokistix 9th Aug 2019 00:06

As usual we are fed managed but conflicting news reports, and we are left to try and form a picture of what actually occurred by reading between the lines.

How many years will pass before someone ‘reveals’ the true story?


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