INTERVIEW: Blow up safety rules to boost defence, French gunpowder chief says

“If we were at war, these topics would no longer be relevant”, said Eurenco CEO.

I'll do you one better. A past European peacetime incident: a large explosion that occurred when someone was throwing sticks of dynamite into a silo full of explosive to help free it up:

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

The Oppau explosion occurred on September 21, 1921, when approximately 4,500 tonnes of a mixture of ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate fertilizer stored in a tower silo exploded

Compared to ammonium sulfate, ammonium nitrate is strongly hygroscopic, thus the mixture of ammonium sulfate and nitrate compresses under its own weight, turning it into a plaster-like substance in the 20-metre-high (66 ft) silo. The workers needed to use pickaxes to get it out, a problematic situation because they could not enter the silo and risk being buried in collapsing fertilizer. To ease their work, small charges of dynamite were used to loosen the mixture.

The explosions were heard as two loud bangs in north-eastern France and in Munich, more than 300 km away, and are estimated to have contained an energy of 1–2 kilotonnes TNT equivalent.

About 80 percent of all buildings in Oppau were destroyed, leaving 6,500 homeless. The pressure wave caused great damage in Mannheim, located just across the Rhine, ripped roofs off up to 25 km away, and destroyed windows farther away, including all the medieval stained-glass windows of Worms cathedral, 15 km (9.3 mi) to the north. In Heidelberg (30 km (19 mi) from Oppau), traffic was stopped by the mass of broken glass on the streets, a tram was derailed, and some roofs were destroyed.

Risk tolerance used to be a lot higher.

1 comments

“If we were at war, these topics would no longer be relevant”, said Eurenco CEO.
I'll do you one better. A past European peacetime incident: a large explosion that occurred when someone was throwing sticks of dynamite into a silo full of explosive to help free it up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppau_explosion
The Oppau explosion occurred on September 21, 1921, when approximately 4,500 tonnes of a mixture of ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate fertilizer stored in a tower silo exploded
Compared to ammonium sulfate, ammonium nitrate is strongly hygroscopic, thus the mixture of ammonium sulfate and nitrate compresses under its own weight, turning it into a plaster-like substance in the 20-metre-high (66 ft) silo. The workers needed to use pickaxes to get it out, a problematic situation because they could not enter the silo and risk being buried in collapsing fertilizer. To ease their work, small charges of dynamite were used to loosen the mixture.
The explosions were heard as two loud bangs in north-eastern France and in Munich, more than 300 km away, and are estimated to have contained an energy of 1–2 kilotonnes TNT equivalent.
About 80 percent of all buildings in Oppau were destroyed, leaving 6,500 homeless. The pressure wave caused great damage in Mannheim, located just across the Rhine, ripped roofs off up to 25 km away, and destroyed windows farther away, including all the medieval stained-glass windows of Worms cathedral, 15 km (9.3 mi) to the north. In Heidelberg (30 km (19 mi) from Oppau), traffic was stopped by the mass of broken glass on the streets, a tram was derailed, and some roofs were destroyed.
Risk tolerance used to be a lot higher.