The definition of this small explosion with a TNT equivalent of 24 tons is already in full swing (in fact, there were two explosions - the first at three tons, the second at 21), as the largest non-nuclear explosion in the history of mankind. Which of course is absolute nonsense.
There have been many explosions in history, an order of magnitude, two orders of magnitude, and even three orders of magnitude stronger than the one that occurred at night. Officially, the most powerful, pre-planned non-nuclear explosion is considered to be the undermining by the British of the fortification of the German island of Heligoland on April 18, 1947, when 6,700 tons of explosives were used (4,000 torpedo warheads, 9,000 depth charges, 91,000 various artillery shells). The power of the explosion was 3.2 kt TNT
Thus, the power of the explosion of Heligoland was four times less than the power of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. It is clear that no one was injured in the explosion, and the explosion itself was documented in detail. The island was returned to Germany in 1952. Now this is a resort place where, attention, it is forbidden to use bicycles.
However, in 1985-93 in the United States at the White Sands test site in New Mexico, a series of 5 non-nuclear explosions was carried out, the power of two of which, known as Minority Scale and Minority Picture, exceeded the power of the Helgoland explosion: 4,304 kt June 27, 1985 years and 4.25 kt on May 14, 1987.
But the most "bugaboom", in no way connected with the reaction of fission of uranium nuclei, occurred in the USSR, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome on July 3, 1969, when during the second launch of the Soviet "lunar" launch vehicle N-1. The launch of the rocket went well, but at an altitude of 200 meters, the first stage engines began to turn off one after another, the last, 18th, turned the rocket 90 degrees and at the 23rd second of the flight it fell flat on the launch pad. As a result of the explosion, the power of which we estimate at 5 kT of TNT equivalent, and in the west (based on the amount of fuel on board the rocket) at 7 kt, the launch pad was destroyed and the adjacent one was badly damaged.
It should be noted that all four N-1 launches ended in accidents, but only in the second case the explosion of the entire rocket occurred directly on the ground.
What is interesting - during the four most powerful non-nuclear explosions in the history of mankind, not a single person was injured.
The largest "unorganized" explosions in Peaceful time are the explosion of a cargo of ammonium nitrate on the cargo ship Grandcamp, which occurred in Texas City on April 16, 1947 (just two days before the explosion in Helgoland), the power of which is estimated at 2.7-3.2 kt of TNT, as a result of which and subsequent followed by fires in a city on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, killing 581 people and injuring another 8,451, as well as a series of explosions at the Cypriot naval base Evangelos Florakis on July 11, 2011, with a total of about the same power. In the case of a recent explosion, during which 13 people were killed and 62 more were injured, there was an enchanting sloppiness - 98 containers with explosives were stored in the bright sun, where they were specifically heated in 40-degree heat for several days.
AT war time most terrible explosion was the famous explosion in Canadian Halifax December 6, 1917, when the French transport "Mont Blanc" to capacity packed with explosives, collided with the Norwegian ship "Imo". The force of the explosion was 2.9 kt of TNT. 2,000 people died and another 9,000 were injured. For information - the population of the city of Halifax at that time was 50 thousand people.
A column of smoke from the explosion in Halifax.
Interestingly, this city once again had to experience this when, on July 18, 1945, ammunition detonated at the Bedford Arsenal in the vicinity of the city. However, in this case, everything cost a few lightly wounded.
However, the explosion in Halifax is far from the deadliest among all non-nuclear explosions in history.
If we talk about a separate explosion, then this is certainly the explosion of the Turkish arsenal in the Rhodes fortress on April 4, 1856. Turks used Orthodox churches located on the territory of the palace as warehouses for gunpowder. One fine morning, when the church bells rang, the gunpowder detonated. Approximately 4,000 people died.
But the most terrible non-nuclear explosion in terms of consequences was carried out by the British on June 7, 1917 on the hills of Messina, when during the Battle of Passchendel, 22 charges with a capacity of 9.1 to 43.4 tons of explosives were simultaneously blown up under the positions of the Germans (455 tons in total). The total losses of the Germans amounted to 10 thousand people.
The first real Big Bang occurred, apparently, on April 4, 1585, during the siege of Antwerp by the Spaniards. At that time, the Spaniards occupied a large a stone bridge at the entrance to the city, which prevented the Dutch (they became Belgians later) to receive supplies along the Scheldt. Then the besieged equipped four huge fire ships, each with a displacement of 800 tons. Three did not reach the goal, but the last fourth did swim to the bridge, but did not immediately explode. The Spaniards decided to capture it and at that moment the explosives detonated. Up to 800 Castilians died, a small tsunami went up the Scheldt, and the city was covered black cloud. The earth shuddered perceptibly 35 kilometers from Antwerp, in Ghent.
Explosion in Antwerp. French engraving from 1727.
So, and you are Tianjin, Tianjin...
Railway accident near Ufa, USSR. At the time of the passage of two passenger trains No. 211 "Novosibirsk-Adler" and No. 212 "Adler-Novosibirsk" powerful explosion an unlimited cloud of wide fractions of light hydrocarbons, formed as a result of an accident on the Siberia-Ural-Volga region pipeline passing nearby. 575 people died, 181 of them were children, more than 600 were injured.
Explosion large volume gas distributed in space had the character of a volumetric explosion. The power of the explosion was estimated at 250-300 tons of TNT. According to other estimates, the power of a volumetric explosion could reach 12 kilotons of TNT, which is comparable to the power of a nuclear explosion in Hiroshima (16 kilotons) /
Explosion of a train in Arzamas. 3 wagons were detonated, carrying a total of 121 tons of hexogen intended for mining enterprises. At the time of the explosion, the train was passing through railroad crossing in the city of Arzamas.
The explosion destroyed 151 houses, more than 800 families were left homeless. According to official figures, 91 people died and 1,500 people were injured. 250 meters of the railway track was destroyed, damaged Train Station, the electrical substation, power lines were destroyed, the gas pipeline was damaged. 2 hospitals, 49 kindergartens, 14 schools, 69 shops were affected.
Explosion during the second launch of the H1 launch vehicle, USSR. Accident due to abnormal operation of engine No. 8 of block A and shutdown of all engines for 23 s of flight. The carrier fell to the launch site. As a result of the largest explosion in the history of rocket science, one launch pad was completely destroyed, and the second was seriously damaged.
British Engineers made an explosion on the island of Helgoland. The purpose of the explosion was the destruction of German bunkers and structures. About 4,000 torpedo warheads, 9,000 underwater bombs, 91,000 grenades of various calibers were detonated - in total 6700 tons of explosives. Rating - 3.2 kt. Listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest explosive detonation.
Texas City. The explosion of up to 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate and subsequent fires and explosions killed at least 581 people.
During the loading of ammonal in Nakhodka, an explosion occurred on the ship Dalstroy. Detonated 400 tons of TNT.
Explosion of the steamer "Fort Stykin", Bombay - 1400 tons of explosives, about 800 people died.
the explosion of the cellars of the stern towers of the battleship Mutsu. Over 1000 dead.
The Battle of Messina - an explosion of 19 huge mines, containing a total of more than 455 tons of ammonium explosives. According to estimates, about 10 thousand Germans died.
in Battle of Jutland- as a result of the explosion art. cellars sank 3 British ships "Indefatigable" (1015 dead), "Queen Mary" (1262 dead), "Invincible" (1026 dead).
Mankind spends huge amounts of money and gigantic efforts to create weapons that are most effective in destroying their own kind. And, as science and history show, it succeeds in this. About what will happen to our planet if all of a sudden on Earth erupts nuclear war, many films have been shot and more than a dozen books have been written. But the most terrible is still a dry description of the weapons tests carried out. mass destruction, reports couched in tight clerical military language.
A projectile of incredible power was developed under the guidance of Kurchatov himself. As a result of seven years of work, the most powerful explosive device throughout the history of mankind. According to various sources, the bomb had from 57 to 58.6 megatons of TNT equivalent. For comparison, the explosion of the Fat Man atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki was equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT. How many troubles she has done, many know.
"Tsar Bomba" served as a demonstration of the power of the USSR to the Western community
As a result of the explosion, fire ball with a radius of about 4.6 kilometers. The light radiation was so powerful that it could cause third-degree burns at a distance of about 100 kilometers from the explosion site. seismic wave, which arose as a result of tests, circled three times Earth. The nuclear mushroom rose to a height of 67 kilometers, and the diameter of its "cap" was 95 kilometers.
Until 2007, the American high-explosive aerial bomb, affectionately known as Mother Of All Bombs by the US military, was considered the largest non-nuclear bomb in the world. The projectile is over 9 meters long and weighs 9.5 tons. And most of this weight falls on the explosive. The force of the explosion is 11 tons of TNT. That is, two "Moms" are enough to smash the average metropolis into dust. However, the fact that so far bombs of this type have not been used in the course of hostilities is encouraging. But one of the "Moms" was sent to Iraq just in case. Apparently, counting on the fact that peacekeepers cannot do without weighty arguments.
"Mother of all bombs" was the most powerful non-nuclear weapon until the "Dad of all bombs" appeared
As the saying goes official description ammunition, "the force of the MOAB explosion is enough to destroy tanks and people on the surface within a few hundred meters and demoralize the troops in the vicinity who survived the explosion."
This is already our answer to the Americans - the development of aviation vacuum bomb increased power, unofficially called the "Dad of all bombs." The ammunition was created in 2007 and now it is this bomb that is considered the most powerful non-nuclear projectile in the world.
Bomb test reports said that the Papa's area of effect is so large that it reduces the cost of producing ammunition by reducing accuracy requirements. Indeed, why a targeted hit if it blows everything around within a radius of 200 meters. And even at a distance of more than two kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion, a person will be knocked down by a shock wave. After all, the power of the "Papa" is four times greater than the "Mom" - the power of the explosion of a vacuum bomb is 44 tons in TNT equivalent. As a separate achievement, the testers argue that the projectile is environmentally friendly. “The test results of the created aviation munition showed that it is commensurate in its effectiveness and capabilities with a nuclear munition, at the same time, I want to emphasize this in particular, the action of this munition absolutely does not pollute environment compared to a nuclear weapon,” the report says. chief General Staff Russian Armed Forces Alexander Rukshin.
"Dad of all bombs" is about four times more powerful than "Mom"
The names of these two Japanese cities have long been synonymous large-scale catastrophe. The US military actually tested atomic bombs on people, dropping shells on Hiroshima on August 6 and on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Most of the victims of the explosions were not military at all, but civilians. Children, women, old people - their bodies instantly turned into coal. There were only silhouettes on the walls - that's how it worked light emission. Birds flying nearby burned up in the air.
"Mushrooms" of nuclear explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The number of victims has not been accurately determined so far: many died not immediately, but later, as a result of the developed radiation sickness. "Kid" with an approximate capacity of 13 to 18 kilotons of TNT, dropped on Hiroshima, killed from 90 to 166 thousand people. In Nagasaki, "Fat Man" with a capacity of 21 kilotons of TNT cut off the lives of 60 to 90 thousand people.
"Fat Man" and "Baby" exhibited in the museum - as a reminder of the destructive power nuclear weapons
This was the first and so far the only case when the force of a nuclear weapon was used in the course of hostilities.
The Podkamennaya Tunguska River was of no interest to anyone until June 17, 1908. On this day, at about seven o'clock in the morning, a huge fireball swept over the territory of the Yenisei basin and exploded over the taiga near Tunguska. Now everyone knows about this river, and versions of what exploded over the taiga have since been published for every taste: from the invasion of aliens to the manifestation of the power of angry gods. However, the main and generally accepted cause of the explosion is still the fall of a meteorite.
The explosion was so powerful that trees were knocked down over an area of more than two thousand square kilometers. Windows were shattered in houses located hundreds of kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion. A few more days after the explosion in the territory from the Atlantic to central Siberia
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Liquid oxygen and kerosene from the engines of an Atlas LV-3C Centaur-C rocket combined in a fiery cloud to destroy the rocket and launch facility at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
2. Operation Sailor Hat, 1965
Series of tests navy USA, which were produced in 1965 on the island of Kahulawe, Hawaii. During the tests, the shock effects of nuclear explosions on warships were simulated. As explosive charges with a capacity of 450 tons were used.
The explosion of one of the four H1 rockets that the USSR planned to launch to the moon. As a result of the explosion of 680 tons of liquid oxygen and kerosene, about 29 TeraJules of energy escaped, which is equal to the power of the explosion in Hiroshima. It was the largest non-nuclear artificial explosion in history.
113,000 liters of liquid propane and isobutane explode after a train crash in Murdoch, Illinois, USA.
One of the scariest man-made disasters in history, was caused by a series of explosions at the Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX). This is an LPG plant in San Juanico, Mexico. The explosion destroyed everything in an area of 11,000 m3. The plant was located in the city. The explosion devastated the city. More than five hundred people died and thousands were severely burned.
The US Department of Defense and the Agency for nuclear power conducted a test that simulated a nuclear weapon explosion by detonating 4.8 kilotons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil in New Mexico. It was the largest planned non-nuclear explosion in history.
Nearly 5 million liters rocket fuel+ ammonium perchlorate + oxidizer exploded at a rocket fuel plant in Nevada. As a result, 2.7 kilotons of energy in TNT equivalent were released. In total there were two large and five smaller explosions. As a result of the disaster, two people died and 372 were injured.
8. Test "MOAB", 2003
MOAB - Mother Of All Bombs or the mother of all bombs. This is the most powerful explosion, the largest non-nuclear bomb produced by the United States.
A series of large explosions at one of the largest oil depots in the UK. Burnt and exploded about 270 million liters of fuel. Explosions were felt even in France and the Netherlands. Fortunately no one died.
Zenit 3SL - unmanned rocket loaded liquid oxygen and kerosene, was supposed to deliver the satellite into orbit from the Odysey platform in the open sea. Needless to say, this did not happen, everything is visible.
FOAB - Father of all bombs. Father of all bombs. Russia's most powerful non-nuclear bomb, which, according to calculations, was four times more powerful than MOAB.
With development technical progress people got more possibilities, but the results of the tragedies and accidents that led to the explosions have become much larger. Of course the most big Bang, which occurred through the fault of people, in terms of consequences cannot be compared with natural disasters planetary and even cosmic scale, but the consequences are amazing.
TOP 10 biggest explosions in history
The cause of the death of six hundred people in 1947 was the explosion of the cargo ship "SS Grandcamp", in the holds of which there were 2300 tons of ammonium nitrate, which is an explosive component. The tragedy was provoked by a fire on the ship, but the consequences would have been much less tragic if not for the shock wave that aggravated the situation.
Because of it, two planes flying past and another ship with 1000 tons of saltpeter on board exploded. Chain reaction covered local factories. In addition to those who died from explosions and fires, 3.5 thousand people were injured. Although there have been more large-scale cases in terms of human casualties in the world, it is the Texas disaster that comes first on the list of impressive explosions.
The second place in the ranking is occupied by an explosion on a French ship in the Canadian port of Halifax. A ship with weapons and explosives collided with a Belgian ship, so that the cargo simply detonated - there was an explosion with a force of 3 kilotons of TNT. It happened during the First World War, in 1917.
shock wave not only raised a dust cloud up to 6.1 km high above the port, but also caused the formation of an 18-meter tornado. After the explosion within a radius of 2 km, there were no survivors at all. The victims of the tragedy were 11 thousand people - 2000 were killed, 9000 people were injured. This incident is the largest artificial accidental explosion in the history of mankind.
Everyone heard about - this tragedy occurred in 1986 in the Ukrainian city of Chernobyl. Nuclear explosion in a reactor nuclear power plant was the cause of the largest disaster in terms of consequences.
The force of the explosion tore off the lid of the reactor weighing 2,000 tons. Radioactive particles have polluted 200 thousand square kilometers of the earth. The cities of Chernobyl, Pripyat and nearby areas became an exclusion zone - residents were evacuated. As for human casualties, 600,000 people were exposed to radiation, and the consequences of this catastrophe are still being felt - videos of all kinds of mutations can be found on the Internet.
Another devastating explosion occurred in the town of Trinity in New Mexico. It was there that the first nuclear explosion, whose strength corresponded to 20 kilotons of TNT.
The bomb tests were successful, and the inhabitants of the state received a radiation dose thousands of times higher than the permissible level. The trials caused numerous diseases, including in unborn children.
5. Tunguska. The largest explosion of a meteorite occurred in 1908 near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, after which the 20-meter meteorite was named.
Despite its modest size, weight celestial body amounted to 185 thousand tons, and the impact affected the territory of 2000 square kilometers. According to scientists, the explosion from the collision of a fragment of a comet or an asteroid with the earth was 4 megatons in TNT equivalent.
The largest volcanic explosion recorded by mankind occurred in 1815. The explosion on Mount Tambora in Indonesia was equivalent to 1,000 megatons of TNT. The explosive eruption of the volcano caused the release of 140 billion tons of magma, which flooded the islands of Sumba and Lombok.
The death toll was 71,000. The surviving people suffered not only from the eruption, but also from climate change, which was provoked by ash rising into the air: on next year after the eruption in Indonesia, snow suddenly fell and destroyed the crop. The resulting famine killed hundreds of thousands of people.
The reason for the appearance of this crater is unknown, but the dimensions are simply amazing - natural object, discovered in 1978 in the Yucatan Peninsula, has a diameter of about 180 kilometers.
Scientists suggest that it is the cataclysm on the coast Gulf of Mexico became the last point in the process of climate change on earth and the extinction of dinosaurs. blast wave led to the destruction of half of the living beings on the planet 65 million years ago.
As for the largest cataclysm in the universe that mankind has observed, this is the collision of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 and the planet Jupiter in 1994.
Explosion of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 The comet on approach to the planet was crushed into fragments by a gigantic force of gravity. But since each of the fragments reached 3 km in width, the consequences of this collision are terrifying. The explosion from the impact of a comet on the planet left behind a funnel 12,000 km wide. This is comparable to the size of the Earth. The force of the explosion corresponded to 6,000 gigatonnes of TNT.
9. Explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki., which hastened the surrender of Japan and the end of World War II, became the only cases in history of the use of nuclear weapons. On August 6, 1945, the Baby bomb was dropped on Hiroshima - 3.2 meters long, 0.7 meters in diameter, weighing 4 tons.
The power of the bomb was 13-18 kilotons of TNT. The Fat Man bomb, dropped 3 days later on Nagasaki, had a length of 3.25 meters, a diameter of 1.54 meters, a weight of 4.6 tons and an explosion power of 21 kilotons of TNT. Destroyed cities, 220,000 dead and polluted territories where no one lives were the result of the explosion of the largest bombs in the history of mankind.
10. Battle of Messina. The largest non-nuclear explosion was recorded on June 7-14, 1917 in Flanders near the village of Mesen. Preparations for the explosion lasted 15 months - the British dug 20 tunnels under the second level ground water, going deep into the ground at 25-50 meters. 600 tons of explosives were placed in the tunnels with a total length of 7.3 km.
Since the underground mined tunnels are located just under the location German troops, the British simply covered this area with artillery fire. The explosion destroyed the lines of German trenches, forming craters up to 80 meters in diameter and up to 27 meters deep. The operation resulted in the death of 10,000 German soldiers. 7200 soldiers were taken prisoner - the demoralized troops offered no resistance. Craters have remained until now and have turned into artificial reservoirs.
