Fire
The fire began from a negligent guard's cigar stub at Porokhovaya (now Lagernaya) railway station, the nearest to the plant. Shells, detonated at the station, set fire to the nearest depots and workshops. Oil tanks, placed on the bank of the Kazanka River, also caught fire. Workers from the plant fled to the opposite suburb of the city, spreading panic over the city. Many soldiers deserted the city, setting panic in the neighboring villages. The rumors said that over 500 were already killed, and Kazan Kremlin as well as the industrial area was totally destroyed. According to rumors, it would be a major explosion and toxic gassing as far as 80 kilometers from the city, as a wind blew from the plant to the city. Many of Kazan's 200,000 population fled, afoot and by trains. Ships were driven 20 km away from Kazan.
Read more about this topic: 1917 Kazan Gunpowder Plant Fire
Famous quotes containing the word fire:
“To many women marriage is only this. It is merely a physical change impinging on their ordinary nature, leaving their mentality untouched, their self-possession intact. They are not burnt by even the red fire of physical passion—far less by the white fire of love.”
—Mary Webb (1881–1927)
“I sometimes left a good fire when I went to take a walk in a winter afternoon; and when I returned, three or four hours afterward, it would be still alive and glowing. My house was not empty though I was gone. It was as if I had left a cheerful housekeeper behind. It was I and Fire that lived there; and commonly my housekeeper proved trustworthy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is a slumbering subterranean fire in nature which never goes out, and which no cold can chill.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)