![]() ![]() They managed to save many people, covered from head to toe in the sticky liquid and struggling to breathe or see, but still clinging to life. ![]() Before long the army and all three emergency services were on the scene. The immediate rescue efforts were conducted by over 100 sailors who had been stationed on a US army ship nearby. He managed to bring his train to a stop in time, before racing back up the tracks to warn other approaching trains of the danger. ![]() The fact that no trains hurtled over the edge is mostly down to Albert Leeman, a brakeman on a train that was passing the area at exactly the moment of the incident. It was so powerful that it left railway tracks, which had circled above the factory, dangling precariously over the edge of their platforms. Rather, it was more like lava flowing from a volcano, slower than water but still too fast for people to outrun and more deadly to anyone it swept up. Molasses is much thicker and denser than water, so it is not accurate to imagine the wave as being similar to a tsunami of water. Just visible here are train tracks that snaked above the streets where the incident occured () Boston had been gripped by a cold snap for the few weeks before, but 15th January was a much milder day and it is thought that this sudden change is what made the brittle metal finally give way. The tank was probably going to burst at some point in 1919 anyway, but the fact that it happened on 15th January is probably down to the change in temperature that day. Over the following two months they poured it into the large tank to the point where it was nearly full to capacity, and by the middle of January 1919 it was clear to anyone who worked near it that it was not going to hold out for much longer. The war ended in November 1918, leaving the company with a large build up of leftover molasses. The company ignored every single warning. For years, local children would stand by the tank with cups to collect the sweet leaking liquid, as inspectors and workmen repeatedly warned the USIA that it was not structurally sound. Indeed, it had been so hurriedly manufactured that it did not undergo the usual test of being filled with water, and it leaked, creaked and groaned right from the very start. The tank in question, standing at 50ft tall and with a 90ft diameter, had been built in a hurry during the first world war, as weapons manufacturers increased their demand for the liquid, which could be used in grenades and rifles. In all, 21 people were killed and over 150 were injured, making it one of the worst disasters in US history, and certainly the most bizarre. The event lasted only a few minutes, but the carnage it left behind took months to clear up and years for people to recover from. Over two million gallons of the dark, sticky liquid poured into the streets surrounding the factory in a sweet but deadly tsunami. At one o’clock that afternoon, it finally did what it had been threatening to do for years. Filled to near capacity with molasses – a sweet liquid used to produce alcoholic drinks and ammunition – the tank had been deemed unsafe by several inspectors but the company had not taken any action to correct this. A quiet, low, consistent growl coming from a factory owned by the United States Industrial Alcohol (USIA) company. But some of the city’s more alert residents could hear another noise that afternoon. The air was filled with the usual sounds of an early-twentieth century city – the rumble of trains, the clatter of horses’ footsteps, the distant noise of heavy industry. 15th January 1919 was a mild day for the time of year in Boston, and as the time approached one o’clock in the afternoon the city’s north end was alive with workers on their lunch break. ![]()
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