South London 2009: This time six people would die. At 4:15 on a hot July afternoon a faulty television started a fire on the ninth floor at Lankanal House. ibid.
72 people died in Grenfell Tower, the greatest loss of life in a fire in the UK since the Second World War … A different scandal has been emerging: while individual firefighters did everything they could to save lives … systemic failures within the London Fire Brigade may have led to many people dying who could have survived. Dispatches: Grenfell: Did the Fire Brigade Fail? Channel 4 2019
Up to 55 of those who died were subject to advice from the London Fire Brigade to stay in the burning building once the fire was out of control. ibid.
On the 30th of October 2015 a fire breaks out during a concert in the Colectiv club in Bucharest. It instantly kills 27 youngsters and injures another 180. Outraged by the fact that the popular club was functioning without fire exits, people take to the streets against the corrupt authorities. Massive nationwide protests force the Social Democrat Government to resign. To calm the people’s fury a politically independent Government of technocrats is appointed. It receives a one-year mandate until the next general elections. 37 more burn victims die in hospitals during the four months after the Colectiv fire. Storyville: Collective: Unravelling a Scandal, captions, BBC 2021
‘The burn patients were kept in a known septic environment, and exposed to some of the most resistant hospital bacteria in Europe.’ ibid. journalist
A very different story for the Americans on Omaha beach … Omaha beach is a disaster. Greatest Events of World War II VI: D-Day, Netflix 2019
The catastrophic loss of the Hindenburg airship ... May 6th 1937: The great airship Hindenburg is approaching the coast of Nova Scotia. The size of four football pitches. Days that Shook the World s2e1: Disaster in the Sky, BBC 2004
The largest and most luxurious airship ever built. ibid.
Sixty-one crew and thirty-six passengers (each paying $400). ibid.
Landing an airship is by far the hardest part of any flight. ibid.
May 6th 1937: the Hindenburg exploded in flames. It is the most iconic air crash in history. And its cause remains unknown. What Destroyed the Hindenburg? Channel 4 2013
35 passengers and crew died in the inferno. ibid.
The first Zeppelin airship took to the skies above Germany in 1900. ibid.
To build the Hindenburg, the Zeppelin company had to be bankrolled by the Nazi government. ibid.
Theory 1: Sabotage Bomb: The explosive detonation matches the start of the Hindenburg fire. ibid.
No-one has ever found the cause of the leak ... The Hindenburg was tail-heavy for at least eight minutes. ibid.
Theory 2: Static Spark: When the landing ropes hit the wet ground the airframe became earthed as did the skin where it touched the frame. ibid.
The Germans had painted the Hindenburg with the ingredients of rocket fuel. (Aeroplane & Disaster) ibid.
St Elmo’s Fire: if the Hindenburg was leaking hydrogen through its air vents, the flammable gas could hit the St Elmo's Fire on the fin. ibid.
Ventilation Theory: was the ventilation system the Hindenburg’s Achilles’ heel? ibid.
She became charged up in a massive electric storm ... leaked hydrogen into the ventilation ... landing ropes earthing the airship ... St Elmo’s fire appears on the tail: leaking hydrogen hit the flames. ibid.
The end of the Hindenburg meant the end of the age of the airship. ibid.
It is always one’s virtues and not one’s vices that precipitate one into disaster. Rebecca West, There is No Conversation, 1935
It was a decade-long natural catastrophe of Biblical proportions when the skies refused their rains. And plagues of grasshoppers and swarms of rabbits descended on parched fields. When bewildered families huddled in darkened rooms while angry winds shook their homes. Pillars of dust choked out the midday sun. Ken Burns’ The Dust Bowl: The Great Plough-Up, PBS 2012
The worst man-made ecological disaster in American history. ibid.
It was an epic of human pain and suffering. ibid.
Special excursion trains brought prospective buyers to the region by the thousands. ibid.
But as the Depression deepened elsewhere, prices of farm commodities collapsed. ibid.
Throughout 1933 the drought continued, and the black blizzards kept engulfing the southern plains. ibid.
‘We realise that some farmers have themselves contributed to this reaping of the whirlwind ... a direct punishment for our sins.’ Ken Burns’ The Dust Bowl: Reaping the Whirlwind, letter Caroline Henderson to Secretary of Agriculture
‘It was a brown world.’ ibid. Dorothy Kleffman
By 1933 the people of the southern plains were already weary of the draught that had struck more than a year earlier, withering their crops and turning their barren fields into pulverized dust which the constant winds picked up and transformed into fearsome black blizzards ... In truth, the worst was yet to come. Ken Burns’ The Dust Bowl: Dust to Eat
‘Dust to eat, and dust to breathe, and dust to drink, dust in the beds and in the flower beds, on dishes and walls and windows … ibid.
One quarter of the county’s population now depended on New Deal jobs. ibid.
By 1936 nearly a quarter of the people living in the southern plains had begun to leave. Ken Burns’ The Dust Bowl: Hardy Ones
By the end of July the number of destructive storms would rise to 79, by the end of the year to 110. ibid.
Then in the early 1950s, when the wet cycle ended and a two-year draught replaced it, the dust storms picked up once more. ibid.
Success and failure are equally disastrous. Tennessee Williams
On April 25th 1986 Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev has been in power for only one year … Chernobyl is a symbol of the Soviet Union’s industrial and technological muscle. Soviet nuclear scientists consider it to be the cream of the nation’s nuclear plants. Seconds from Disaster: Meltdown in Chernobyl, National Geographic 2021
Chernobyl has four reactors all running at the same time. ibid.
A safety drill – but from the start, problems develop, and now something seems to be going very wrong. The young men who work the night shift struggle to prevent a major nuclear accident. ibid.
Chernobyl’s number four reactor explodes. The force of the explosion blows the reactor’s 2,000-ton steel roof sideways. 8 tons of highly reactive fuel blast into the night sky. ibid.
It’s the Christmas shopping season in London and the rush hour is in full swing. Commuters and shoppers stream through King’s Cross, the city’s busiest rail interchange. Suddenly, a deadly wall of flame roars through the packed station. It kills 31 people. Seconds from Disaster: King’s Cross Fire
Fires are a fact of life on the ageing infrastructure of the Tube. There have been over 400 the previous three decades. ibid.
Moments later a huge jet of fire erupts … A small blaze has suddenly erupted into a ferocious inferno. ibid.
The prime suspect for the King’s Cross fire is now a careless smoker discarding a still-burning match. 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: Paddington Train Disaster
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.
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: Bismark. Seconds from Disaster: The Bismark
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 Bismark lists hard to port and capsizes. ibid.
May 9th 1996: High on Everest in the death zone with little help of rescue a climber contacts his wife. Seven lives have already been lost in Mount Everest’s deadliest storm. Seconds from Disaster: Tragedy on Everest