Real explosions - examples

The fact that the dust or gas explosions are not just a theoretical danger is proved by many disasters happened in the past. These incidents do still happen. Below, you will find the examples of explosions leading to industrial disasters with victims and massive destructions. All these disasters didn't have to happen if the technologies would be protected by appropriate protective systems.

Industrial failures depicted here are only those which were described in literature and were generally known about. There will not be explosion which happened but information about them never left the gates of the factory, despite of the fact that there were deads and big material damages and great financial losses due the failure caused by production interruptions. All these failures could be avoided by usually very simple meanings.

There are hundreds of explosion in industrial installation every year, many of them with really bad concequences. Some of the explosions lead to closing the whole factory and sad ends of the whole companies.

DeBruce Grain silo, Kansas, USA, 8th June 1998

What happened before explosion:
Silo was being prepared for the harvest. Staff was cleaning the bucket elevators, hoppers, machines. The cleaned dust was put into the main elevator to be transported to one of the cells which was meant to collect waste from the grain. Probably becuase of some stone or piece of metal, the spark occured in the head of the elevator, igniting the whirled dust inside the elevator's head. This explosion wasn't any strong, but caused rupture of the device's shell, with pressure wave and flame spreading out. There were strong layers of dust on the floor in the whole area of the top of the cells. This dust was whirled by the explosion in the elevator and ignited by the explosion flame, destructing the half of the silo complex.
Consequences:
7 dead, 10 badly injured, several light injuries. Silo destroyed.
Next information:
- see official investigation report (in English).