Hello! Vladimir Raichev is in touch, as you can hear me, reception-reception. I'm in a great mood, I'm on vacation, I devote my free time to the blog. Today I have prepared another top catastrophe for you. Maritime disasters happen at least as often as air crashes, so our meeting today will be dedicated to them.

But first, imagine what a person who goes on a cruise experiences? Sea, sun, expensive liner. Have you already felt it for yourself? Agree that this is a real idyll.

All the disasters that are told about have turned cruises from a fantastic idyll into a real nightmare. Over the past 100 years, the world has become aware of many tragedies on the water, which will haunt the memory and consciousness of people for a long time to come. Like, for example, the crash of the Swedish warship Vasa.

The story of the Titanic is probably known to everyone. It was a luxury liner. It sank on its maiden voyage off the coast of Nova Scotia. Then, as a result of a collision with an iceberg, more than 1,500 people died.

One of the most majestic ships never made it to its destination. For a long time it was believed that the reason for the death of the liner lies in the negligence of the crew and the captain, and even tighter in their pride. Today the situation has changed a little.

New research is being done. According to one of them, the cause of the crash was the strengthening of the current, which brought huge icebergs. According to scientists, at that time the Moon approached the Earth as close as possible in 1000 years, which contributed to a change in the course.

In general, I already wrote about the many reasons for the sinking of the Titanic in my article.

Disaster of the Empress of Ireland

This happened in 1914. In the history of Canada, a terrible tragedy at sea was the sinking of the Empress of Ireland. This liner sank as a result of a collision with a coal carrier. There was a collision on the St. Lawrence River. The crash happened in 14 minutes.

As a result of this disaster, the Empress sank to a depth of more than 40 meters. More than 1000 people died. Despite the number of victims, this story is unknown to most people. Everything happened so fast that most of the passengers did not even realize what had happened.

The story of the sinking of the Lusitania

During World War I, the tragedy of the Lusitania occurred in 1915. The sinking of the Lusitania is considered one of the most mysterious events associated with the history of the First World War.

The reason was the torpedoing by a German submarine. This was the first official version, which had many omissions and obvious inaccuracies. Many of the researchers on this issue say that ammunition was placed on board.

This is also confirmed by one of the passengers, a Canadian professor who was on board. After the torpedo was blown up, a second explosion was heard. It was explosive ammunition. For many, everything about the Lusitania has become a dirty story.

Tragedy of Laconia

The Laconia liner went on an 11-day Christmas cruise in December 1963. There were over 1,000 people on board. On December 22, a fire broke out on the ship. It started in the booth of a hairdressing salon.

Stuart, who noticed the smoke, was trying to put out the fire, which was spreading rapidly and dynamically. From the corridor, the fire spread to the common cabins. More than 120 people died because of this incident.

Disasters with ships and liners that have been happening recently are less significant in terms of the number of victims. However, they also deserve our attention. Thanks to modern technical development, it is possible to avoid casualties and adverse consequences as much as possible.

For example, we can take the ship "Norwegian Dream", which collided with a cargo ship. It happened in 1999. The number of passengers who were on board reached 2400 thousand.

Only 3 people received minor injuries. The evacuation of passengers took place as soon as possible, which made it possible to avoid the appearance of victims.

One of the latest tragedies known to the whole world was the story of the Costa Concordia liner. There were approximately 4,200 people on board. Due to disorganization, as well as insufficient training of the ship's crew, 17 people died. 15 people were never found. More than 80 people were injured.

But despite the fact that human casualties in water disasters have recently become minimal, the costs from them are not decreasing. Why are there costs, this is all a matter of gain, imagine what kind of stress a person receives during a crash.

In my understanding, the expectation of an imminent death is a huge blow to the human psyche, which can hardly be compared with anything.

That's all for today, subscribe to blog updates, I have something to tell you about. Share the article with your friends on social networks, I am sure that they will also be interested in reading about water disasters. Take care of yourself, until we meet again, bye-bye.

For hundreds of years of sailing on various ships, sailboats and barges across the expanses of the seas and oceans, there have been many kinds of accidents and shipwrecks. Films have even been made about some of them, the most popular of which, of course, is the Titanic. But which shipwrecks were the largest in terms of the size of the ship and the number of victims? In this ranking, we answer this question by presenting the biggest maritime disasters.

11

The rating opens with a British passenger liner that was torpedoed by the German submarine U-20 on May 7, 1915, in a zone designated by the Kaiser government as a zone of submarine warfare. The ship, sailing with a painted over name and not raising any flag above it, sank in 18 minutes, 13 kilometers from the coast of Ireland. 1198 people died out of 1959 who were on board. The destruction of this ship turned the public opinion of many countries against Germany and contributed to the entry of the United States into the First World War two years later.

10

Single-screw steamer, had a capacity of 7142 register tons, a length of 132 meters, a beam of 17 meters, a maximum speed of 11 knots. On April 12, 1944, a steamship with explosives with a total mass of more than 1,500 tons stood up for unloading at the pier of the port of Bombay. There were other cargoes on board - 8,700 tons of cotton, 128 ingots of gold, sulfur, wood, engine oil, etc. The ship was loaded in violation of safety regulations. At about 2 p.m. a fire broke out on board, and no actions contributed to its elimination. At 16:06 there was an explosion, which generated a tidal wave of such force that the Jalampada ship, with a displacement of almost 4,000 tons, ended up on the roof of a 17-meter warehouse. After 34 min. there was a second explosion.

Burning cotton scattered within a radius of 900 meters from the epicenter and set fire to everything: ships, warehouses, houses. A strong wind from the sea drove a wall of fire to the city. The fires were extinguished only after 2 weeks. It took about 7 months to restore the port. Official statistics announced 1376 deaths, 2408 people were admitted to hospitals. The fire destroyed 55,000 tons of grain, thousands of tons of seeds, oil, oil; a huge amount of military equipment and almost one square mile of city blocks. 6 thousand firms went bankrupt, 50 thousand people lost their jobs. Many small and 4 large ships, dozens were destroyed.

9

It was with this ship that the most famous disaster on the water occurred. The British White Star Line steamer was the second of three Olympic-class twin steamers and the largest passenger liner in the world at the time of construction. Gross tonnage 46,328 register tons, displacement 66,000 tons. The ship is 269 meters long, 28 meters wide and 52 meters high. The engine room had 29 boilers and 159 coal fireboxes. Maximum speed 25 knots. On its maiden voyage on April 14, 1912, it collided with an iceberg and sank 2 hours and 40 minutes later. There were 2224 people on board. Of these, 711 people were saved, 1513 died. The Titanic disaster became legendary, several feature films were shot based on its plot.

8

In the harbor of the Canadian city of Halifax on December 6, 1917, the French military cargo ship Mont Blanc, which was fully loaded with one explosive - TNT, pyroxylin and picric acid, collided with the Norwegian ship Imo. As a result of the strongest explosion, the port and a significant part of the city were completely destroyed. About 2,000 people died as a result of an explosion under the rubble of buildings and because of the fires that arose after the explosion. Approximately 9,000 people were injured, 400 people lost their sight. The explosion in Halifax is one of the strongest explosions arranged by mankind, this explosion is considered the most powerful explosion of the pre-nuclear era.

7

This French auxiliary cruiser served as a flagship and participated in the neutralization of the Greek fleet. Displacement - 25,000 tons, length - 166 meters, width - 27 meters, power - 29,000 horsepower, speed - 20 knots, cruising range - 4,700 miles at 10 knots. She sank in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Greece on February 26, 1916 after a torpedo attack by the German submarine U-35. Of the 4,000 people on board, 3,130 died, 870 escaped.

6

After 1944, this German passenger ocean liner was converted into a floating hospital, participated in the evacuation of mostly wounded soldiers and refugees from East Prussia from the advancing Red Army. The liner left the port of Pillau on February 9, 1945 and headed for Kiel, there were more than 4,000 people on board - wounded military personnel, soldiers, refugees, medical staff and crew members. On the night of February 10 at 00:55, the Soviet submarine S-13 torpedoed the liner with two torpedoes. The ship sank 15 minutes later, killing 3,608 and saving 659 people. When the liner was torpedoed, the submarine commander was convinced that in front of him was not a passenger liner, but a military cruiser.

5

The passenger ferry Dona Paz, registered in the Philippines, sank on December 20, 1987 at about 10 p.m. near the island of Marinduque after a collision with the tanker Vector. Approximately 4,375 people died in the process, making this the largest maritime disaster in peacetime.

4

This passenger-cargo ship of the "Adzharia" type was built at the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad in 1928, and on November 7, 1941, it was sunk by the Germans near the Crimean coast. The death toll was, according to various estimates, from 3,000 to 4,500 people. On the ship were several thousand wounded soldiers and evacuated citizens, including the staff of 23 military and civilian hospitals, the leadership of the pioneer camp and part of the party leadership of the Crimea. The loading of the evacuees was in a hurry, and their exact number is not known. There is a version that the cause of this maritime disaster was the criminal mistakes of the Black Sea Fleet command. The crowded motor ship, instead of making the transition to the Caucasian, was sent by the command to Yalta.

3

A cargo ship built in Oslo, Norway, launched on 4 April 1940. It was confiscated by the Germans after Norway was occupied by Germany. At first it was used as a conditional target for training the crews of German submarines. Later, the ship took part in the evacuation of people by sea from the advancing Red Army. It was armed with cannons. This ship managed to make four trips, in which 19,785 people were evacuated. On the night of April 16, 1945, the ship making the fifth trip was torpedoed by the Soviet submarine L-3, after which the Goya sank in the Baltic Sea. More than 6,900 people died in the disaster.

2

On May 3, 1945, a tragedy occurred in the Baltic Sea, the victims of which were approximately 8,000 people. The German liner "Cap Arkona" and the cargo ship "Tilbek", transporting prisoners from the evacuating concentration camps, were fired upon by British aircraft. As a result, more than 5,000 people died on the Cap Arkon, and about 2,800 on the Tilbeck. According to one version, this raid was a mistake on the part of the British Air Force, who believed that German troops were on the ships, according to another, the pilots were ordered to destroy everything enemy ships in the area.

1

The most on the water happened with this German passenger liner, which since 1940 has been converted into a floating hospital. During the Second World War, it was used as an infirmary, a hostel for the 2nd training brigade of submariners. The death of the ship, torpedoed on January 30, 1945 by the Soviet submarine S-13 under the command of A. I. Marinesko, is considered the largest disaster in maritime history - according to some historians, real losses could be more than 9,000 people.

At 21:16 the first torpedo hit the bow of the ship, later the second blew up the empty pool where the women of the naval auxiliary battalion were, and the last one hit the engine room. With the joint efforts of the crew and passengers, some lifeboats were launched, and yet there were many people in the icy water. From the strong roll of the ship, an anti-aircraft gun came off the deck and crushed one of the boats full of people. About an hour after the attack, the Wilhelm Gustloff completely sank.

As a result of industrialization and development of industry at the beginning of the 20th century, large-scale construction of ships with large displacement on steam engines began in the leading countries of the world. Huge passenger ships were launched into the water, the capacity of which was measured in thousands of seats.

Steam engines allowed long-distance travel around the world. Replacing a wooden hull with a steel one made materials cheaper and stronger, thus providing shipbuilding with all the necessary resources. But despite the improvement in the quality of shipbuilding, ships sank no less than in the 18th or 19th century, only the scale of shipwrecks was more global due to the number of victims. This article will tell you about the biggest maritime disasters in history.

In 10th place in terms of the number of victims is the Kursk submarine, which sank in the Barents Sea on August 12, 2000. The reason is the explosion of a torpedo in the torpedo room, however, according to the unofficial version, the Kursk was attacked by the US Navy - the Memphis submarine. There is an opinion that the Russian government deliberately covered up the American attack in order to avoid international conflict. 118 people became victims. Nobody survived.

The collision of the liner "Admiral Nakhimov"

9th place. Collision of the Soviet liner "Admiral Nakhimov" with the cargo ship "Pyotr Vasev" on August 31, 1986 in the Black Sea. Both captains were convicted. The captain of the ship "Pyotr Vasev", trusting in the system of automated radar plotting the course (CAD), did not change direction and speed until the critical distance from the "Admiral Nakhimov" was found. Another important factor is that the captains of the ships could not establish contact with each other before agreeing who should yield to whom. The cargo ship rammed a passenger steamer at an angle of 110 degrees. For 8 minutes, "Admiral Nakhimov" plunged under water. 423 crew members were killed.

8th place is occupied by Novorossiysk, a Soviet battleship received by the USSR through reparations from the Italian navy. On October 29, 1955, the Novorossiysk ship was sunk by a mine in the Black Sea, however, there is a version classified by the Soviet Union, according to which the battleship exploded as a result of the actions of Italian sabotage groups. The Italian government did not want to leave the pride of the national fleet in the hands of the enemy, so they set up a diversion on the Novorossiysk. As a result of the disaster, 604 crew members died.

In 7th place is the American ship Eastland, which sank on July 24, 1915 on Lake Michigan. The tourist ship was designed for 1,000 passengers, however, 2,500 tickets were sold on board. After the captain ordered to give up the mooring line, the ship slowly fell to starboard, the passengers began to panic. An overcrowded passenger ship fell to the port side, from an overflowing cargo in the form of an extra fifteen hundred passengers. 845 people died. According to a court decision, the mechanic was guilty, who unevenly filled the ballasts.

6th place is occupied by the ferry "Estonia", which sank on September 28, 1994 in the Gulf of Finland. At 1:15 a.m., the ferry's bow visor came off, causing water to enter the cargo hold. In 35 minutes, "Estonia" completely sank. The victims of the tragedy were 852 people.

Shipwreck of the steamer "Empress of Ireland"

On the 5th place is the shipwreck of the giant luxury steamer of the class "Empress of Ireland" which collided with a cargo ship filled with coal on May 29, 1914. The ship "Storstad" rammed a passenger liner to the starboard side at an angle of 35 degrees. The hole was five meters deep "Empress of Ireland". After the collision, the captain of the passenger ship shouted into the mouthpiece of the commander of the cargo ship: "Get full speed ahead," but the captain of the Storstad said: "The engines are running at full power in reverse, there is nothing I can do." A few minutes later, the cargo ship moved back, removing the bow from the side of the Express of Island, and water gushed through a hole with an area of ​​​​30 square meters. m. The ship sank. 1012 passengers died.

4th place is occupied by the disaster that occurred during the collision of the Titanic passenger liner with a huge ice block on April 14, 1912. The reason for the shipwreck is the lack of visibility and the imprudence of the captain, who ignored 7 ice warnings and ordered the ship to be put into full swing. 23:39 The watcher reported from the tower about the discovery of an iceberg right on the course. The captain ordered to deviate to the port side, thereby putting the starboard under attack. Through the hole, water began to flow into the compartments of the ship. Panic broke out on the ship, third-class passengers, who were in the lower compartments, could not find a way out of the narrow corridors. As a result of the crash, 1496 people died, 712 survivors were picked up by the steamer Carpathia passing by.

On the 3rd place is the Yoola ferry, which sank off the coast of the Gambia on September 26, 2002. The cause of the crash is the overload of the vessel. The ship, designed for 580 passengers, accommodated more than 2,000 people. A strong gust of wind overturned the overloaded ferry. "Yoola" took 1863 people with her to the bottom.

In 2nd place is the French warship Mont Blanc, which collided with the Norwegian ship Imo on December 6, 1917 in the port of Halifax. On board the Mont Blanc were 2,300 tons of the most powerful chemical explosives. A Norwegian ship rammed into the starboard side of a Frenchman, resulting in the most powerful explosion before the nuclear age. The port was completely destroyed by the explosion. 1963 people died, 2000 people went missing.

The first place in the ranking of the most global maritime disasters is occupied by the Dona Paz ferry, which collided with an oil tanker on December 20, 1987. A major fire starts, most of the passengers, trapped in a fire trap, burned alive on the lower decks of the ship. Eighty tons of oil spilled into the sea and ignited. Both ships sank in 20 minutes. The reason is the inexperience of the sailor who operated the Dona Paz ferry, whose captain was watching TV in his cabin during a collision with an oil carrier. 4375 people died.

1953
Winter
destructive ice invasion in the Caspian Sea: due to the sharp warming in the northern part of the sea, huge ice fields broke away from the fast ice and, driven by the wind and sea currents, floated south. On the way of their movement, the facilities of the Izberg-Sea, Artyom-Sea and Gyurgyany-Sea oil fields were destroyed, the ice was driven away by the wind only near the Oil Rocks field. The crew of one of the fishing boats on the Izberg Sea was lost. This field, unlike the others, was not restored due to the poverty of the oil-bearing layer.
March 8
during a grand crush at the funeral of Stalin in the area of ​​Trubnaya Square (Moscow), many people died. The troops that kept order could not cope with the tragic situation for a long time. The death toll is still not known, there are estimates from 800 to 1500 people. This event was called the "second Khodynka".
March 15th
1st Soviet nuclear accident as a result of a spontaneous chain reaction in a plutonium solution. Occurred at the radiochemical plant of plant No. 817 (Chelyabinsk-65). 2 operators were irradiated, one of them suffered a severe form of radiation sickness and leg amputation, but survived and died 35 years after the accident.
April 18-23
a series of incidents with the Volga steamer: on the 18th, when returning to the backwater from a trial test voyage, during a maneuver, it received a break in the underwater part of the hull and almost sank; It took 3 days to repair. On April 21, the ship hit the breakwater with the wind, as a result, the stern mast was broken. On April 23, at the roadstead of the Mariinsky Posad pier, the steamer rolled aft to the shore, as a result of which the rudder stock was bent.
April 21
accident at plant No. 817 (Chelyabinsk-65) due to uncontrolled deposition of highly enriched uranium-235 in technological communications. As a result of a spontaneous nuclear chain reaction, 6 people were injured: the female operator died from exposure, the rest suffered radiation sickness.
May 11
catastrophe during the test flight of the Tu-95/1 aircraft: a fire in the 3rd engine, which soon engulfed the entire aircraft. The crew died under the leadership of the hero of the Soviet Union, test pilot A.D. Flight (4 people).
May 29
at the airfield of the Air Force Research Institute (Zhukovsky, Moscow Region), an Il-12 aircraft taking off and a Mi-4 helicopter undergoing state tests collided. The reason is the inattention of flight management and pilots. 5 crew members of the IL-12 and 3 on the Mi-4 were killed.
July 27
during a flight over the mountainous regions of China (according to other sources - over the sea abeam the Yangtze River), an American fighter attacked and shot down a Soviet military transport aircraft of the Pacific Fleet "Il-12", flying from Port Arthur to Ussuriysk. The crew and all passengers (21 people) died. The government of the USSR sued the US for over $12 million. The case reached the international court, but the hearings did not take place.
August
on the ship "Memory of Markin", cruising along the river. Volga, the nozzle pipeline of the left main engine was torn, 1 person died.
August 13
in the Caucasus along the river valley. Chkheri passed through a mudflow of such force that it moved a stone depth of 71 cubic meters. m and weighing about 190 tons.
August 23
An exceptionally strong tornado with a wind speed of 80 m/s swept through the city of Rostov, Yaroslavl Region. The tornado passed through the city in 8 minutes, leaving a strip of destruction 500 m wide. It dropped 2 wagons weighing 16 tons from the railway tracks, lifted and threw a frame from a truck weighing more than a ton aside by 12 m. In general, 4 tornadoes were recorded in the region during the year.
September 27
poisoning of 5 employees of the State Institute of Applied Chemistry in a car accident 150 km from Leningrad and the strait of the “product” (substance of general toxic action) from the tank. The "product" was heptyl rocket fuel.
+
plague epidemic at one of the stations of the Central Asian Railway: 22 people fell ill, including 1 railway worker.

1954
February 18-22
in the city of Tuapse (Krasnodar Territory) with a wind speed of 22-29 m/s, the ice thickness on the wires reached 5 cm, and the weight of 1 m of the wire was 2 kg. Despite the storm wind, the "ice coat" was kept on the wires for 100 hours.
April, 4
in Tbilisi (Georgian SSR) at the opening match of the season of the USSR championship between the teams "Dynamo" (Tbilisi) and "Spartak" (Moscow) there was a crush. A crowd of thousands of stowaways demolished the iron gates of the stadium. 20 people died, official figures were not published.
Summer
strong ground forest fires in the Southern Baikal region.
June 6
in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, not far from the fish factory No. 7 of the Kirov Combine (Kamchatka Region), during a severe storm, the Moskvin sea tug boat with a metal barge No. 3346 weighing 40 tons sank. 31 people died. “The accident with such grave consequences was the result of promiscuity that flourished at the fish processing plant among the personnel of the port office, irresponsibility and a criminally negligent attitude towards the task assigned.” This incident was the 14th in a row at the fish processing plant since the beginning of the year.
Autumn
A fire broke out at a shipyard in Bely Gorodok (Kalinin Region). There was no water in the fire mains on the slipway, as a result of which the steamers I.S. Nikitin", "Gogol", "Guardian of the Revolution" and "Mikhail Kalinin".
September 14
operation "Snowball": in the Orenburg region at the Totsk training ground during military exercises under the command of the Minister of Defense of the USSR N.A. Bulganin and his deputies marshals A.M. Vasilevsky and G.K. Zhukov carried out an air nuclear explosion at an altitude of 350 m. 45,000 soldiers and officers took part in the exercises, some of whom (“Eastern troops”) shortly after the explosion received an order to “storm” its epicenter without protective equipment, which was defended (also without special equipment) by “Western troops”. The wind carried the radioactive cloud not to the deserted steppe, as expected, but directly to the city of Orenburg and further, towards the city of Krasnoyarsk. Losses among the civilian population are still unknown, of the military who took part in the exercises, a little more than 2,000 people are now alive.
October 14
flood in Leningrad. The water in the river The Neva rose 222 cm above the ordinary (the mark at the building of the Mining Institute, coinciding with sea level; floods with a water rise of up to 210 cm above the ordinary are considered dangerous, up to 299 cm - especially dangerous, over 300 cm - catastrophic).
October 24
during a flight from Kazan to Moscow, a Tu-75 plane crashed in cloudy weather. The alleged cause is engine failure. 4 crew members were killed, led by Major General of Aviation A.I. Kabanov.
November 7
Soviet fighters shot down a US reconnaissance aircraft "RB-29", which made a reconnaissance flight along the coastline of the Soviet Far East in the Sea of ​​Japan. 10 pilots from the crew parachuted out and were rescued by American emergency services. One crew member was killed.
November 25
an accident with chlorine at the Akrikhin plant (Moscow region) as a result of a pipeline rupture. 19 people were injured.
December 3
over the waters of Peter the Great Bay (off the coast of Primorsky Krai), fighters of the Pacific Fleet Air Force mistakenly shot down a Tu-14 T torpedo bomber. On the plane, the identification system and radio communication failed, the fighter pilot in the dark mistook the stars on the fuselage for American ones and opened fire. The tragedy was subjected to default, no one was looking for the crew - however, red five-pointed stars were applied to the keel of the Tu-14 aircraft in order to exclude such incidents. The wreckage of the aircraft was discovered only in 2009.

1955
January 14
group poisoning with hydrocyanic acid vapors at the plant p / box 188 (Chelyabinsk). 11 people were injured.
February, 15
The Il-28T torpedo bomber aircraft of the 1535 mine-torpedo aviation regiment of the Pacific Fleet Air Force of the USSR Navy did not return to base. The place and cause of death have not been established. The aircraft and crew were written off as missing, and only in 2008 their remains were found in the Shkotovsky district of Primorsky Krai by the AviaPoisk group.
March 14th
strong night storm on the western coast of Kamchatka. At the central base of the Pymta fish factory, a club, a canteen, an administration building, and several residential barracks were damaged. At the 5th base of Kirovsky, a hospital, embassy sheds, 8 barracks were destroyed. In the village The cannery was destroyed in Krutogorovo.
April 16
an explosion at the pilot production of the 2nd generation organophosphorus poisonous substance sarin at plant No. 91 (Stalingrad). Acute fatal poisoning and death of an apparatchik.
June 26
on the steamer "Michurin", following the flight Moscow-Gorky along the river. Oka, there was an explosion of the boiler. Flight cancelled.
July
accident on the ship "Svirstroy", the next flight Leningrad-Sviritsa. The left propeller shaft came out of the deadwood and water began to penetrate through the hole. Thanks to the actions of the captain, the flow of water is stopped. The cause of the accident is an assembly defect.
July 23
hurricane with thunderstorm and hail near Zima station (Irkutsk region). The wind destroyed houses, tore off their roofs, broke trees. The mass of hailstones that fell during the downpour was 12-13 grams, with a diameter of up to 5 cm. Crops and orchards were damaged over a large area, insulators of power lines, glass windows and greenhouses were broken, wires were torn.
August 3rd
a fire on a diesel-electric ship that went on its 1st flight down the river. Don. The flame that escaped into the ventilation shaft spread to the upper superstructures and, without encountering any obstacles in its path, spread along the corridors and penetrated into the cabins. As a result, the diesel-electric ship burned down completely, its metal hull was flooded the next day.
August 4
at the shipyard in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a bridge between 2 trawlers collapsed from a height of 4 meters. Several people were injured, and most of all, the guest of the USSR, the Minister of the Fishing Industry of Canada Sinclair, who was admitted to the hospital with a broken leg.
25-th of August
performing a test flight, crashed during takeoff, unable to correct the roll, the production aircraft "M-4". The entire crew of 7 perished.
September 1
collision of 2 freight trains on the electrified section of the Omsk railway, which occurred on the Valerino-Kolonia section. Train #2110 crashed into the tail of train #1702 ahead of it. As a result of the crash and the resulting fire, part of the cars and the electric locomotive of train No. 2110 burned down and crashed.
October 15
flood in Leningrad. The water in the river The Neva rose 293 cm above the ordinary. This is one of the largest floods in the city in the twentieth century. and the 4th tallest in its history. The damage amounted to 403.5 million rubles. The English aircraft carrier Triumph was visiting the city that day - it was torn off the anchors and carried to the granite wall, only powerful tugboats arrived in time to save the ship from an accident.
22 of October
on the Kamchatka Peninsula, in the center of the Klyuchevskaya group of giant volcanoes, after 3 weeks of earthquakes (since September 29), Bezymyanny volcano began to erupt - the most powerful eruption of the 20th century. Within a month, the crater of the volcano expanded from 250 to 800 m. In December 1955 - February 1956, activity decreased sharply.
29th of October
at night in the bay of Sevastopol, as a result of an external underwater explosion (presumably from a German bottom mine left over from the war), the battleship Novorossiysk (former Italian Giulio Cesare) sank. 607 people died.
November 22
the most powerful nuclear explosion produced at the Semipalatinsk test site (Kazakh SSR): the RDS-37 thermonuclear bomb with a power of 1.6 Mt was dropped from a Tu-16 aircraft and exploded at an altitude of 1550 m. The shock wave caused testers in a residential town, located 60 km from the site of the explosion, buildings were slightly damaged, glass was broken in the windows of houses. There were no human casualties: in with. Small Akzhary (55 km from the epicenter of the explosion) due to the collapse of the ceiling in one of the houses, a 3-year-old girl died. In an area located 36 km from the epicenter, 6 soldiers were covered with earth in a trench, 1 of them died of suffocation.
December 16
chlorine poisoning as a result of a pipeline rupture at plant No. 97 in the city of Usolye-Sibirskoye (Irkutsk region). 52 people were injured, 17 of them were hospitalized.
December 22
ice spread from the south of the Ukrainian SSR to the Caspian lowland. It was one of the most outstanding in terms of intensity and area coverage of ice. In the evening in the city of Rostov-on-Don, the movement of trolleybuses and trams stopped, trees were breaking under the weight of the ice crust.
+
another flood in the Stanislav region (Ukrainian SSR) caused damage only to forestry in the amount of 24 million rubles.

1956
February 2
risky nuclear experiment: a full-scale test of the 1st Soviet missile system equipped with a nuclear warhead. The R-5 M missile was launched from the Kapustin Yar test site. After 11 minutes, the head of the rocket with a plutonium nuclear charge, having flown through space for almost 1200 km, exploded on the ground near the Aral Sea Karakum. Soon the explosion area was surrounded by barbed wire and guarded for a long time to prevent people from entering the danger zone.
18th of Febuary
release of chlorine from faulty equipment in shop No. 4 GosNIIchlorproekt (Moscow), 12 people were injured.
March 13
when testing the Il-28 aircraft, the test pilot of the Air Force Research Institute, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Major G.M. Parshin. Flight radio operator S.P. died with him. Goryunov and cameraman Rostovtsev, who was supposed to film the refueling of the MiG-19 from the Tu-16.
30th of March
During the eruption of the Bezymyanny volcano in Kamchatka, a giant explosion occurred. The top of the volcano has been demolished, its height has decreased by almost 200 m, the products of the eruption have changed the surroundings of the volcano beyond recognition. The total volume of ash thrown up to a height of 45 km exceeded 0.5 billion cubic meters. m. The area covered with ash was 400 km long and 100-150 km wide, the total volume of ash falling was at least 0.5 billion cubic meters. At a distance of more than 10 km, everything was buried under a layer of volcanic sand 0.5-1.5 m thick. Jets of sand tore off the bark from trees within a radius of up to 30 km, all thin trees were broken. The last phase of the eruption began, which ended by November. It happened in a completely deserted area and did not claim a single human life.
May
the Dnieper steamer "Joseph Stalin" in one of the voyages goes beyond the ship's passage and firmly runs aground. The demurrage of the vessel is 9 hours.
June
severe flooding on the Amur and its tributaries (Khabarovsk Territory) due to heavy rains that exceeded the seasonal precipitation rate by 2.5 times. For a considerable distance, not only the low left bank was flooded, but also part of the city of Khabarovsk standing on the high right bank: many city buildings, houses, piers, warehouses and industrial premises were damaged, telephone communications and power supply to certain regions of the region were disrupted.
August
through the fault of the navigators on the river. Volga, there is a collision of diesel-electric ships "Karelia" and "Composer Glinka". Ships get damaged.
12th of August
in the Baltic Sea on the submarine "M-259" in the diesel compartment, an explosion occurred in the power plant, a fire started. 4 crew members died from burns.
August 25-31
a strong storm on August 25 near the city of Naro-Fominsk (Moscow region) and on August 31 near the city of Bronnitsy in the same place, accompanied by a group of tornadoes. Windbreak strips, characteristic of tornadoes, were 200-300 m wide, they followed each other in separate spots 2-3 km long, indicating the "jumping" of tornadoes. All the destruction was not linear, but was concentrated in one place.
September 15-17
a catastrophic storm (12 points on the Beaufort scale) on the Caspian Sea in the area of ​​the Oil Rocks field. The wind force reached 40 m/s. Giant waves that hit the oil field destroyed about 4 km of sea racks, 8 near-rack platforms, of which 6 were already producing oil in a constant mode. The sea base was also damaged. 22 oil workers were killed.
November 21
The submarine "M-200" ("Revenge") sank in the Baltic Sea after a collision with the destroyer "Statny". A total of 36 people died.
+
fire in the engine room on the M-255 submarine. 7 people died.

1957
January 24
explosion at the Pavlograd Plant No. 55 of the Ministry of General Mechanical Engineering (Kazakh SSR). The workshop was completely destroyed, 46 people were killed, 30 workers were injured. It is curious that it was at that moment that the plant's party committee discussed the issue of improving safety measures.
April
high flood in the Khabarovsk Territory: they overflowed the banks of the river. Amur, Ussuri, Anyui, Khungari, Bikin, flooding not only the floodplain, but also part of the Middle Amur and Ussuri lowlands. The water rose 4 m above the ordinary and heavily flooded the settlements of Vyazemsky, Bikin, lowland areas of the city of Khabarovsk. Houses, storage facilities, port facilities were damaged, communications were disrupted.
May June
dust storms in the North Caucasus. The Stavropol Territory was especially affected, where, for example, in the Petrovsky District, up to 1/3 of winter crops (almost 4 thousand hectares) were damaged.
June 12-13
a catastrophic flood in Ciscarpathia due to a downpour, which resulted in huge material damage: the railway track was washed out, villages were flooded, outbuildings were demolished, agricultural crops were damaged and died over large areas.
27th of June
earthquake in Transbaikalia (Muya Range). The intensity of shaking at the epicenter is 10 points. Destruction in the Chita, Bodaibo and other settlements, breaks up to 30 km long on the surface of the earth, landslides in the mountains.
July
major fire in the Shchurovo (Kolomensky district, Moscow region): during a thunderstorm, lightning hit an oil tank, there were also tanks with gasoline nearby. The fire was extinguished for a whole day, in the process of fire and explosions from the banks of the river. Oka threw teams of firefighters into the water. Burning oil floated on the water, making it impossible for people to swim out, who surfaced only for a moment to take a breath of air and plunged again. Many Moscow firefighters died, a huge number of people received burns and injuries.
the 14 th of July
Soviet ship "Ashgabat" ran aground and sank in the Caspian Sea. The crash killed 270 people.
July 28th
In Moscow, during the opening ceremony of the VI World Festival of Youth and Students, the Shcherbakov department store collapsed, on the roof of which hundreds of people who wanted to see the festival procession climbed. As a result, the building had to be demolished, and the department store was moved to another location nearby. How many people suffered then, whether there were dead, is still unknown.
August
near the Toksovo station (Leningrad region), a passenger train derailed, moving at full speed towards Leningrad. As a result of the train crash, several carriages were severely deformed, dozens of people died.
August 2
emergency radiation situation at the test site of about. Novaya Zemlya during a group underground nuclear test. 5 charges with a power of 0.001 to 150 kt were simultaneously detonated. Approximately 1.5 minutes after the explosion, a gas-vapor mixture burst through a crack in a natural fracture of a melted glacier on a mountain slope. On the day of the test, the weather was calm, so the radioactive cloud hovered over the technological site for a long time, which caused accidental exposure of the test site personnel.
August 15
while landing in Copenhagen (Denmark), the Soviet Il-14P aircraft collided in the fog with a power plant pipe, fell in the harbor of the city and sank at a depth of 5 m. 23 people died.
August 17
when landing at the airport in Kyiv (Ukrainian SSR), 2 Il-14 cargo planes collided. The reason is a dispatch service error. After the collision, the wreckage of the planes collapsed on the residential buildings of the city. 9 people died. - Crew members.
September 26
in the Baltic Sea on the submarine "M-256" there was a power plant failure (engine explosion) and a fire started. The boat sank, killing 35 crew members.
September 29
radioecological accident in the Southern Urals: near the city of Kyshtym at plant No. 817, during the extraction of plutonium, due to overheating of a container with nuclear waste, an explosion occurred and the release of radioactive products into the atmosphere, as well as radioactive dirt from the territory of the enterprise, followed by their dispersion in part of the territory of Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk and Tyumen regions with a total area of ​​25,000 sq. km, on which there were 217 villages and villages. The so-called "East Ural radioactive trace" was formed. The fire that broke out after the explosion, which affected the surrounding forest, was extinguished for several days. Affected (according to published data) 124,000 people; the death toll is not named, but it is known that over the next 3 years after this accident, more than 30 small villages within a 1200 sq. km and about 17,000 people. were evacuated from this area. According to the international scale, the accident was rated as severe, 6th degree. Radiation contamination in Chelyabinsk-40 reached its maximum after 15-19 years, that is, in the mid-1970s. The local river Techa in the late 1990s had radioactivity at 15 maximum permissible concentrations, but the water continued to be used for household needs.
This accident is included in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest release of nuclear waste.
October 1
diesel-electric ship "Lithuania", following the Kuibyshev reservoir, collides with the barge "Kara" and gets damaged.
November 12
the tragedy in the village of Bussa, Brest region (Belarusian SSR): a film shifter arrived at the school. The mechanic sat with his machine in the doorway, laying out reels of nitro film on the floor, and refilling them by the light of a kerosene lamp filled with gasoline standing on the table. The lamp was accidentally knocked over by one of the spectators (he was drunk), a fire broke out, the fire quickly spread throughout the log room. As a result, 65 people died, many received severe burns. Information about the tragedy was classified, but in the USSR it was forbidden to use nitro-cellulite film.
December 4
Gobi-Altai earthquake. Intensity: according to various sources, from 8.6 to 11-12 points. The epicenter fell on the almost deserted regions of the Mongolian Altai, the tremors were felt on the territory of Mongolia, the northern provinces of China and in the USSR (Buryat ASSR, Irkutsk and Chita regions). Destruction and serious damage to buildings were observed on an area of ​​​​about 300,000 square meters. km, at a distance of up to 300-325 km from the epicenter.
December 14
catastrophic flooding in the Eastern Carpathians: streams of water from snow melted in the mountains filled the rivers, the channels of which underwent significant deformation: on some rivers, the erosion of the banks reached 12-15 m. Second channels arose in some places of the watercourses. The same sharp thaw caused a catastrophic flood on the Carpathian tributaries of the Dniester, which caused great damage to the economy of a number of regions. The fight against it was complicated by a strong wind, the speed of which reached 25 m / s, and in the basins of the upper river. Rod - 40 m/s.
+
- at the metallurgical plant "Krivorozhstal" (Dnepropetrovsk region of the Ukrainian SSR) an explosion of a 60-ton converter occurred. 12 people died.
- windblows destroyed 5 million cubic meters of timber in the Ukrainian Carpathians.

1958
January 20th
Freight train No. 842 crashed on the stretch between Dolgorukovo and Svechinskaya stations of the Moscow-Kursk-Donbass railway. 18 wagons and 5 tanks with methyl alcohol were broken. Residents of the village of Bratovshchina, Dolgorukovsky district, Lipetsk region, chose the remains of alcohol from broken tanks and began to use it. 21 people received poisoning, of which 5 people. died in the hospital.
February 8-10
in the Volga region and adjacent areas, cyclones passed, accompanied by heavy snowfall at low temperatures. Strong winds and snow drifts disrupted the movement of passenger and freight trains on a number of sections of the Ufimskaya and other railways. There were numerous cases of loss of life and damage to buildings; in some areas, telephone communications were disrupted and power lines were damaged. According to preliminary data from the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, 224 people died and about 120 went missing.
Spring
one of the largest floods in the history of Altai. Entire villages were under water, in the city of Barnaul (Altai Territory) the streets were flooded. On the river Ob in the Barnaul region, the maximum water height above zero of the water gauge was noted at the level of 666 cm - more than a meter above the critical indicator.
18th of March
while performing an experimental takeoff without boosters at the LII MAP airfield (Zhukovsky, Moscow Region), the Mi-4 aircraft crashed. Of the 7 crew members, 6 were killed.
April 29
during the first test flight after assembly near the city of Voronezh, the An-10 aircraft of Antonov Design Bureau crashed. The reason is engine failure. The crew made a rough forced landing in a field near a small river, during which the aircraft was destroyed. The flight engineer died.
May
large forest fires in the Irkutsk region, which arose due to fire clearing of forests and violation of fire regulations. The fire covered an area of ​​about 8 thousand hectares.
May 10
flood on the river Dvina on Maimakse: a powerful ice drift led to flooding, the maximum level of which exceeded the flood figure of 1849 by 13 cm.
Summer
in the city of Barnaul (Altai Territory), in front of hundreds of citizens, a ferry was turned over, transporting people from the Lapa resting place to the river port. The cause of the tragedy is the unskilled actions of the driver. An eyewitness to the tragedy, M. Bukharin, claims that there were at least 150-200 people on the ferry, and only a few "sailed out."
June 4
Private frontier post Sagly (Ovyursky district of the Tuva Autonomous Region) Minyarov killed 6 of his colleagues with shots from a carbine and seriously wounded 4. During the arrest, he resisted and was killed.
the 9th of June
near the city of Magadan, while descending for landing, which took place in rainy and cloudy conditions, an Il-12 aircraft crashed into a hill. The crew on board consisted of 4 people. and 16 passengers died.
27th of June
in the river Tara (Omsk region) while boating drowned 20 children of the Muromtsevsky district pioneer camp, the head of the camp and a medical worker. The tragedy occurred due to the overload of the boat.
30 June
at the entrance arrows of the Kapitolovo station of the Oktyabrskaya railway, a suburban train crashed, en route from Priozersk to Leningrad: 5 cars derailed. 30 people died, 175 were injured.
July 13
in the Shchelkovsky district of the Moscow region, a Tu-16 aircraft of the Air Force Research Institute crashed: while landing in heavy rain, it crashed into residential buildings in the village. Khotovo, resulting in a fire, accompanied by explosions of ammunition and oxygen cylinders. Killed 6 of the 7 crew members, 7 people. local population, 1 received severe burns. 2 residential buildings burned down, 4 houses were destroyed by a falling plane. 2 firefighters were injured while putting out the fire.
July 18
5 military aircraft of the military unit stationed near the city of Chernyakhovsk (Kaliningrad region of the RSFSR) were dropped on the vill. Stulialiai (Kybartsky district of the Lithuanian SSR) 39 combat air bombs. As a result, 3 people were killed and wounded, 2 houses were destroyed, 3 cows were killed and a state farm tractor was put out of action.
August 15
near the city of Birobidzhan (Jewish Autonomous Region) a Tu-104 A passenger plane crashed. The reason is that at an altitude of 10,800 m, in perfectly clear weather, it fell into an ascending turbulent flow and turned out to be above its practical ceiling at an altitude of 12,000 m, where it lost speed and fell into a tailspin. 64 people died.
17 October
in the area of ​​​​the city of Kanash (Chuvash ASSR), a Tu-104 A aircraft crashed. When turning towards the alternate airfield, he fell into a powerful upward turbulent flow, lost speed, went into an almost vertical dive and crashed into the ground next to the railway track, knocking down several telegraph poles. On board was a delegation of Chinese and North Korean Komsomol activists. 73 people died.
November 6
an earthquake with an intensity of 9 points and a tsunami in the area of ​​the Kuril Islands to the southeast of about. Iturup.
+
- the polio epidemic that began in the USSR in 1950 took on menacing forms. The average annual incidence was about 12,000 cases per year, epidemic outbreaks occurred in different regions of the RSFSR, in the Kirghiz, Kazakh, Uzbek, Turkmen, Armenian SSR, etc., for a number of years there was a high incidence in the Baltic republics. In 1958, the epidemic reached its peak: 22,054 cases were registered in the USSR (the rate per 100,000 people was 10.66). In the RSFSR, 10,400 cases of the paralytic form of this infection were noted. Since 1959, mass immunization with a live oral polio vaccine began, as a result of which, by the end of the 1960s, the incidence was reduced to the level of several dozen cases per year throughout the USSR.
– during the year 2 earthquakes in the middle reaches of the river. Olekma (Yakut ASSR): Nyukzhinskoye and Olekminskoye. The intensity is 8-9 points, the magnitude is 6.4-6.5. These are one of the most significant seismic events in southern Yakutia.

1959
January 18
on approach to the city of Stalingrad, an Il-14 plane crashed, making a flight from Moscow (Vnukovo) to Baku: when landing, it came under machine-gun fire from the ground (training fire was going on at the training ground near the airport). 25 people died.
February 1/2
at night in the Northern Urals, under unclear circumstances, a group of tourists from the Ural Polytechnic Institute, headed by I. Dyatlov, died. The group stopped for the night on the slope of Mount Kholatchakhl (translated from Mansi - "Mountain of the Dead"). The corpses of the expedition members were found only in March-May. The investigation concluded that the cause of the hyel of tourists was "an elemental force that people were not able to overcome." A certain set of oddities revealed by the investigation gave rise to a lot of versions of the reasons for what happened: an avalanche, an attack by prisoners or Mansi, testing of secret weapons by special services and the military - up to the paranormal.
5 May
a large earthquake in the south of Kamchatka with its epicenter in the Kronotsky Bay near the Shipunsky Peninsula. In the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, soil vibrations with a force of 8 points. The most severe destruction in the area of ​​the regional hospital.
July 15
on the river Amur began flooding caused by a typhoon that came from the Pacific Ocean. The peak was in July-August, but there were some manifestations in September. Flooded and flooded Amursk, Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, Bolon, Elban, Vyazemsky, the outskirts of Khabarovsk and Komsomolsk-on-Amur, almost all settlements up to the mouth of the Amur; there were cases of breaking of protective dams.
August 10
in the Le-9 mine of the Torezanthracite trust, during blasting, methane ignited due to blasting without stemming. The flame engulfed a large space and went deep into the mined-out space. On August 12, there was a strong explosion. The mine rescuers were thrown by the blast onto the ventilation drift, some of them received serious injuries. Lava instantly filled with smoke and coal dust, explosions (more than 20) continued throughout the day. By nightfall, the lava was flooded.
August 21
the steamer "Ivan Kalyaev" firmly runs aground on the river. The Northern Dvina is right next to the landing stage, which is placed in an unacceptably shallow place.
August 29
Middle Baikal earthquake, one of the largest seismic events of the twentieth century on about. Baikal. The intensity of shaking at the epicenter: 9 points. The total number of aftershocks over the next 3 months exceeded 700, and up to May 1960 more than 1200 aftershocks were instrumentally recorded. The total area covered by shaking was about 700,000 square meters. km.
September 1-4
due to a severe storm on the Tsimlyansk reservoir (Volgograd and Rostov regions), the movement of passenger ships was stopped.
October
an outbreak of diphtheria in the city of Kerch (Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the Ukrainian SSR), which continued until the end of March 1960. 200 cases and 381 bacteria carriers were registered (2 cases died at the very beginning of the outbreak).
November 16
at the airport of Lvov (Ukrainian SSR), an An-10 passenger plane crashed while approaching the runway for an unknown reason. 40 people died.
December 28th
South Korean warships fired on the hydrographic vessel of the Pacific Fleet "Ungo". At the same time, 1 person killed, 5 wounded.

It was the first radiation accident in the history of our country. The tragedy is better known as the "Kyshtym accident", since the chemical plant was located in the closed city of Chelyabinsk-40 (now Ozyorsk), and Kyshtym was the closest city to it, indicated on the maps.

An explosion, estimated at tens of tons of TNT, occurred in a container for radioactive waste: the cooling system failed. The container was destroyed, a concrete floor 1 meter thick and weighing 160 tons was thrown aside, about 20 million curies of radioactive substances were released into the atmosphere. A huge territory with a population of 270 thousand people, which included three regions: Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk and Tyumen, turned out to be in the zone of radiation contamination.

No one died directly from the explosion. On the first day after the explosion, servicemen from the nearest unit and prisoners from the colony, which was also nearby, were withdrawn from the affected area. And only a week or two after the accident, the evacuation of the local population began, and even then only from the most affected settlements.

Losses came later - among the hundreds of thousands of military personnel and civilian workers involved in the elimination of the consequences of the accident. All of them received significant doses of radiation. Now the nuclear reserve "East Ural radioactive trace" is located at the site of the accident. You cannot visit it: the level of radioactivity in it is still very high.

The authorities hid information about the disaster both from the population of the country and from the inhabitants of the Urals, who found themselves in the zone of radioactive contamination. A column of smoke and dust up to a kilometer high, flickering with orange-red light, was called the "aurora borealis" in the newspapers. But the fact of the accident in the Urals soon became known abroad. The Danish press was the first to report on this. True, the message was not entirely accurate: it claimed that some kind of accident had occurred during Soviet nuclear tests.

Explosion of a ballistic missile at Baikonur (1960)

This was not the only catastrophe at Baikonur, but one of the largest that occurred at the cosmodrome during the Soviet period. A fundamentally new Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile R-16 was being prepared for launch.

The Chairman of the State Commission for testing the R-16 was the Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Missile Forces (RVSN) - Marshal of Artillery M. I. Nedelin. As often happened in Soviet history, they wanted to make a gift for the 43rd anniversary of the October Revolution, to carry out the first launch before November 7th.

In a hurry, all conceivable and unimaginable violations of safety regulations were committed. As a result, during the tests there was a premature start of the engine and an explosion of propellant. Burned and later died from burns and wounds, according to various sources, from 92 to 126 people. Among the dead was Marshal Nedelin.

Information about the tragedy was classified, there were no official reports of the disaster. Relatives and friends of the victims were advised to talk about the accident. Even Marshal Nedelin, according to an official statement, "died tragically in a plane crash."

Collision of airliners over Dneprodzerzhinsk (1979)

This plane crash is one of the largest in aviation history. In terms of the number of victims in the history of the USSR, it ranks second, and among aircraft collisions in general, it ranks third.

In the sky over Dneprodzerzhinsk (Ukrainian SSR), two Aeroflot Tu-134 planes (Chelyabinsk-Chisinau and Tashkent-Minsk flights) collided, killing all 178 people on them. Among the dead were 17 players of the Uzbek football club Pakhtakor. On that day, in the Kharkiv control center, in violation of the instructions, an inexperienced dispatcher was in the most stressed sector. The situation was further complicated by the fact that one of the three air corridors was "booked" for the top party nomenklatura member Chernenko, who was supposed to fly that day to Brezhnev, who was vacationing in the Crimea.

When the controllers saw that the planes were going across each other, they gave the command to one of the sides to gain altitude. The answer was: “Understood.” The controllers calmed down, deciding that the command was being carried out by the right aircraft. In fact, the crew of the third aircraft in general answered - Il-62, flying to Tashkent. A minute later, two Tu-134s collided in the air ...

This catastrophe would have been hushed up, like the others, if it were not for the death of an entire football team, and from the major leagues. As a result, although this plane crash did not receive wide publicity in the USSR (only in the newspaper "Soviet Sport" a tiny note was placed about the death of "Pakhtakor"), but at the international level it was not hushed up.

The death of an aircraft with the command staff of the Pacific Fleet near Leningrad (1981)

During takeoff from a military airfield in the city of Pushkin (near Leningrad), a Tu-104 transport aircraft crashed, in which were the commander of the Pacific Fleet, almost all of his deputies, half of the staff of the headquarters, the command of naval aviation, flotillas, brigades and squadrons. At one point, the Pacific Fleet lost command. A total of 52 people died, among them 16 admirals. For comparison: during the entire Great Patriotic War, the Soviet fleet lost only four admirals.

The cause of the tragedy was the overload of the aircraft. In addition to heavy safes with maps and documents, they carried a lot of scarce goods that the authorities were able to get in Leningrad: household appliances, furniture, even fruit. The crew understood that the plane was overloaded, and informed the dispatcher about this, but he did not dare to object to the high authorities.

The overload of the tail section, the sudden increase in wind, the incorrect centering of the aircraft and, probably, the cargo that had shifted after takeoff - all this led to a disaster. The plane, after taking off at 50 meters, fell on the tail and starboard side and fell. Upon impact, the fuel caught fire - no one managed to survive. Eyewitnesses recalled that after the crash, the entire strip was covered with scarce oranges. After the disaster, all Tu-104s were decommissioned by the Air Force.

The death of the ship "Alexander Suvorov" (1983)

The cruise ship, sailing along the route Rostov-on-Don - Moscow, at maximum speed (25 km / h) entered the non-navigable span of the Ulyanovsk bridge across the Volga and, by inertia, passed under the bridge for another 300 meters. As a result, the entire upper part of the ship was literally cut off: the cabin, the cinema hall, the chimneys. The situation was aggravated by the fact that at that time a freight train was crossing the bridge. Due to the collision of the ship with the bridge, the train was displaced by 40 centimeters. As a result, part of the wagons overturned, and their cargo (coal, grain, logs) spilled onto the ship, increasing the number of victims.

The death toll, according to various sources, ranged from 176 to 600 people. Difficulties with counting are due to the fact that the ship was overloaded. In addition to 330 passengers, 50 crew members and 35 service personnel, acquaintances and relatives of the crew members were not quite officially on board. Unfortunately, most of the passengers were on the upper deck (in the cinema hall and on the dance floor), completely destroyed during the collision with the bridge - hence the large number of victims.

One of the main reasons for the tragedy that occurred late in the evening was the lack of signal lights on the bridge. In addition, on the ill-fated non-navigable span, there was a lineman's booth, which in the dark looked like a signal board marking the ship's span.

The death of two trains near Ufa (1989)

This catastrophe is the largest in the history of domestic railway transport. At the time of the oncoming passage of two passenger trains - "Novosibirsk - Adler" and "Adler - Novosibirsk" - there was a powerful explosion. Of the 1370 passengers (among them 383 children), 575 people died (according to other sources - 645), of which 181 were children; 623 people were injured.

The explosion was so strong that the shock wave knocked out windows in a neighboring city, located more than 10 kilometers from the scene, and the column of fire was visible even for 100 kilometers. What's next town! The explosion triggered the North American Air Defense System (NORAD) alarm! The Americans decided that the Soviets had tested another atomic bomb. According to experts, the power of the explosion was almost equal to the power of the nuclear explosion in Hiroshima.

What caused such a devastating explosion? On the Western Siberia-Ural-Volga region pipeline laid nearby, through which a liquefied gas-gasoline mixture was transported, a hole of one and a half meters was formed. The gas released through the hole accumulated in a lowland, not far from the railway track.

A few hours before the disaster, the instruments showed a drop in pressure in the pipeline. However, instead of looking for a leak, the personnel on duty only increased the gas supply to restore pressure. As a result, even more gas leaked out under increased pressure. The drivers of the passing trains warned the section dispatcher that there was a strong gas contamination on the stretch, but they did not attach any importance to this.

The ignition of the "gas lake" was a matter of time. What led to the explosion - a cigarette thrown out of the train window, a spark from under the wheels during braking - can no longer be established. As well as the reason for the appearance of a hole in the pipeline - due to corrosion or from the excavator bucket.

P.S. As you must have noticed, the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is not included in the list. You can read about it separately - and more.