Defense Industry
- December 6, 1917: Halifax explosion. A ship loaded with about 9000 tons of high explosives destined for France caught fire as a result of a collision in Halifax harbour, and exploded. The most powerful explosion in world history before the first atomic bomb test in New Mexico. Killed about 2000, injured about 9000.
- July 17, 1944: Port Chicago Disaster. A munitions explosion that killed 320 people occurred at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Port Chicago, California.
- August 9, 1965: Little Rock AFB in Searcy, Arkansas. 53 contract workers were killed during a fire at a Titan missile silo. The cause of the fire was determined to be a welding rod damaging a hydraulic hose allowing hydraulic vapors to leak and spread throughout the silo, which were then ignited by an open flame source.
- 11 July 2011 Evangelos Florakis Naval Base explosion Cyprus. A munitions dump explosion. 13 workers were killed.
Read more about this topic: List Of Industrial Disasters
Famous quotes containing the words defense and/or industry:
“The sick man is taken away by the institution that takes charge not of the individual, but of his illness, an isolated object transformed or eliminated by technicians devoted to the defense of health the way others are attached to the defense of law and order or tidiness.”
—Michel de Certeau (1925–1986)
“I have never yet spoken from a public platform about women in industry that someone has not said, “But things are far better than they used to be.” I confess to impatience with persons who are satisfied with a dangerously slow tempo of progress for half of society in an age which requires a much faster tempo than in the days that “used to be.” Let us use what might be instead of what has been as our yardstick!”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)