Year 9 Of Plainly Difficult Documentaries

Can you believe it that the channel has gotten up to 9 years and at the time of the release of this video, we are well into the 10th year. I must apologize for the lateness of the omnibus video for last year. It just has been so busy trying to get everything done. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this nearly 13 hours of me talking. I hope you have a good night's sleep. As most of you seem to really only watch the video, well, this long video one anyway uh to fall asleep to, which is kind of what I do with other YouTube channels myself. I quite often listen to a playlist of documentaries to fall asleep to. So, I'm exactly like you guys. So, anyway, enjoy the next 13 hours of me talking and let's hope we can get through year 10. It is the 15th of February, 1996, and a rocket is sitting ready to be launched into Earth's orbit. The space vehicle is one of multiple telecommunications satellites operated by the company Intel Sat. Although it is a US-built satellite, the rocket for the journey off the planet is a Chinese one. The rocket is launched, but almost immediately after liftoff, it tips over and flies for 22 seconds, eventually crashing into a nearby hillside. The resulting explosion ends up wiping out an unsuspecting village. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. Today we're looking at the ill- fated Intel Sat tragedy. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my YouTube and Patreon members. If you'd like to see my videos early access and ad free, then why not give it a shout? Also, whilst you're there, maybe give the channel a subscribe as it really helps out with the algorithms and all that jazz. [music] Background. So before we launch a rocket at a village, we need to go into a little background. Intelsat was first envisioned, at least in the public's mind, in 1961 in a speech from President Kennedy. This led to the communications satellite act of 1962 in which space commercialization was addressed. It provided the establishment of ownership, operation, and regulation of a commercial communication satellite system. Intels was set up as an international government organization tasked with managing a fleet of telecommunication satellites. It began in 1964 and successfully launched its first satellite, Intel Sat 1, also known as the Early Bird, in 1965. Over the following decades, multiple generations of satellites were launched, creating an interconnected communications network. When the seventh generation of satellites were in the works, the contract for construction was awarded to Space Systems or Laurel LLC. You see, over the different generations, Intelsat had contracted out its satellite manufacturing to different companies. Interestingly, Intelsat 1 was built by Hughes Aircraft Company of Howard Hughes fame. Anyways, Laurel was given the contract in 1988 to build a fleet of nine satellites numbered 701 to 708. The seventh generation would have a life expectancy in orbit of roughly 15 years based off of Laurel's LS1300 satellite architecture. Next up was to secure somewhere and something to launch the generation of satellites from. Well, this would be a number of different countries and one of which was China and their Long March rocket. In 1992, China Great Wall Industry Corporation, the PRC, state controlled missile rocket and launch provider was awarded the contract to launch Intel Sat. The rocket that would be used for launch was a new model of long march rockets known as the 3B. Whilst we're here, let's have a quick look at this 3B rocket. The freebie's development began in 1986. Now, apart from looking a little bit like a penis, the rocket has three stages to get it into low Earth orbit. The rocket has four boosters attached to the first stage. So usually after takeoff, roughly about 10 seconds into flight, the rocket is pitched over. At this time, the rocket is powered up by the boosters for approximately onto 128 seconds. These are then jettisoned from the first stage section. Next came the first and second stage separation, which occurred around 140 seconds into the flight. Then after at 338 seconds post launch, the second and third stage separation. Then the third stage has a burn followed by some coasting then another burn and altitude adjustment after which the payload is separated. The long march rockets are launched from here the Zshang satellite launch center. In 1994 the site was surveyed by Intelsat and Laurel where it was noted as being primitive but workable. So quickly we need to talk about this launch center. The site came about in the 1960s and a need to build a space center further from the Soviet border in the wake of the Sino Soviet split. Although started in the 1960s, the launch site wouldn't be used until 1984 in which the first rocket launch was of the Long March 3. The site is surrounded by hills with a few towns towards the southeast. One such was called Mlin. This town was just outside the launch complex and had a population estimated of under a thousand people. Within the launch cent's main boundary, there was a residential area for crew and visiting foreign officials. They sported a small park, a hotel, a coordination building, and alongside this main boundary line was a railway line which spurs off into the launch complex. In order to not risk killing people nearby, rocket launches usually had a flight path towards the east. Over the period between awarding and launch, a number of licenses were required to allow the US-made satellite to be launched from the People's Republic of China. And once all signed off and completed, Intel Sat was shipped from the US on the 11th of January 1996. Now, the launch of the Intel SAT 708 was to be the first launch of the new Long March 3B. It was to occur just a few days before the Chinese New Year in 1996. A new successful rocket launch of a foreign satellite would be a massive propaganda boom. Something of a cherry on the New Year's cake, so to speak. Except the cherry would turn out to be moldy and on fire. The disaster. It is the 15th of February, 1996, and Intel SAT708 is planned for launch in the early hours, roughly around 3:00 a.m. The event is being broadcast live on China Central Television with a feed being sent to Intel set back in the US. Handy as it means we get to see the launch with its fascinating images, too. Liftoff began with ignition of the rocket's engines around 1 minute past 3:00 a.m. Once the rocket had begun to move, within just seconds, it began to lean over. Even before clearing the umbilical service tower, the rocket was almost parallel to the ground. It was traveling way off the planned flight route, heading towards the populated areas and residential areas towards the southeast, including that village I mentioned earlier of Mlin. It flew for roughly 22 seconds for a distance of just over 1,800 meters. Soon enough, it had smashed into the ground in a ball of flames near the main gate at the complex on a hillside, blasting debris all around the impact site. As soon as the rocket hit, crews were dispatched to the crash site to start dealing with victims and damage to the area. Damage had been sustained on the nearby coordination building and hotel as well as a number of village houses outside the main gate appeared to be completely flattened. Straight away, Intelsat and Laurel employees who on site to view the launch were shuffled away and refused entry to the crash site. No one outside the Chinese space program was allowed to view the wreckage for 12 hours. The Cox report in 1998 would say three reasons for the delayed access. The first explanation was that Laurel and Intel sat employees were kept away from the debris field until safety hazards from the crash site could be neutralized. The second, as reported in the news media, was that the delay had been imposed to give PRC officials time to seek out US satellite encryption devices intended to protect satellite command processor or unauthorized messages once the satellite was in orbit. The third explanation offered by at least one Laurel employee was that the time delay gave the PRC an opportunity to clean up the probable human carnage that resulted from the crash. Once they were allowed into the crash site, Laurel staff members started to gather and collect satellite debris. A list of everything recovered was made and debris was created up and shipped back to Laurel in Palo Alto for analysis. Here they found encryption equipment was actually missing. Initially the crash was announced to the world via the PRC official news channel in a news flash. At 3001 today, our country's newly developed Long March 3B carrier rocket failed to launch the Intel SAT 708 communication satellite in Xi Jang satellite launch center. It was the maiden flight of this launch vehicle. The parties concerned are investigating this accident. Now, initially the crash damage and human cost was not released by the Chinese government. An initial report was brought out by the end of February. But now that means we have to go on to the next section of this video, the aftermath. So for this section of our video, we will see some different goals from our various players. You see, the Chinese government understandably wanted to play down the disaster and the Intel SAT wanted to find out the underlying cause. This would result in multiple investigations. But one thing we still don't know even today for certain is the number of victims. You see, China officially announced through its state-run media company, Xiwa news agency that six lost their lives and around 50 were injured. However, this rather conservative number has been doubted by many foreign attendees who had seen a small group of villagers outside the main gate set up to view the launch. This gate was right near the crash site. On top of that, again, foreign visitors noted severe damage to multiple village houses. Foreign visitors also would later on say that multiple trucks and ambulances rushed into the crash site, carrying away large masses of material under Tarpoolins. Officially, the government claimed that the nearby Meen village had been evacuated pre-launch. And even more strangely, when you look on satellite images of the area, Mailing Village now doesn't exist at all. So, the death toll is still a mystery. It is at least six, but by some estimates, it could have been up to a couple of hundred. Interestingly, two of the official six were workers who were near the coordination building. The exact crash site wouldn't be made known, at least officially to the outside world, until as late as the year 2000. So, what of the cause of the dramatic unexpected rocketbased detour? Well, again, this would be a little bit of a bone of contention. Just two weeks post crash, the People's Republic of China released their findings. This was a piece of equipment in charge of determinating altitude, position, and velocity information for the guidance and control of the rocket. This was called the inertial measurement unit. The fault was thought to be an intermittent connection failure. Although a plausible explanation, an independent review would be required. You see, just two months after Intel SAT 708, another satellite called AppStar 1A was due to be launched, although to be flung into Earth orbit on the older Long March 3. Insurance companies involved in the project wanted to see an independent review of Intel Sat. As a side note, I never really considered that satellites would also need to be insured. So well the more you know. Anyh whos in the face of losing out on future foreign income from launches the PRC agreed to the review. The independent review committee met over a number of meetings in which all data was poured over and the full cause was eventually settled upon. This was a loss of current to the torque motor of the inner frame gimbal axis caused by a broken solder joint which caused the rocket to veer off course. Although seemingly a very similar explanation, the committee posed that an intermittent fault wasn't required to cause the prolonged failure. Instead, a phenomenon called a limit cycle was blamed. The PRC would end up changing its disaster cause to that of the committee's findings. The committee suggested increasing testing on components in future rockets and that the PRC re-examined their environmental test plan for all avionics equipment. But there were some major concerns about some of the material that was not recovered at the crash site. Two FAC3R encryption boards used on board Intel Sat 708 were not recovered. However, later assessments of the predicted damage to the boards made them unlikely to have survived and if they had they would have been near impossible to reverse engineer the information printed on them. The whole debacle raised concerns within the US of the potential risk of technology getting into the hands of the Chinese government. As such, post disaster, the United States placed satellite technology under stricter export controls. In the aftermath of the crash, the Chinese space industry would change. Lessons would be learned, and although US component satellites would no longer be exported to China, some commercial satellites would actually end up leaving Earth from Chinese land. So, it is now scale time. It's going to be anywhere between four and an eight, depending on how many people actually died. A question that we'll likely never get a clear answer on. And this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? I'd love to know what you think. This is a plenty of foot production. All videos on the channel are creative common attribution shite licensed plenty of foot videos produced by me, John. a very cold written John in a very cold corner of southern London, UK. And all that's left to say is thank you very much for watching and as always, Mr. Music, can you play us out please? [music] >> [music] >> Like all good disasters, we start here in sunny Cuddon. More specifically, Cuddon College or maybe here Cudon University Center. But details on this aren't all that clear. Regardless, it is the place today's main character got his UK education. Our person of interest today is Fei Osibona. And spoiler alert, the part about the whole Cudon education was taken from his obituary. But how did he die? Well, Osabona was in Lagos, Nigeria, working as a property developer and his death was from his own creation. Was Fei a Nigerian icorus or a victim of shoddy building? Well, wait to find out. Today we're looking at the 2021 Lagos tower block building collapse. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon and YouTube members. If you'd like to watch my videos early access and ad free, then you can check it out for as little as £1 per month. Lagos, a country's financial center. Lagos, like many capital cities across the world, is a magnet for many people. as somewhere to live and work. The reasons are often financial, cultural, and even in the pursuit of power. And again, like any major city, finding somewhere decent to live can be a frustrating and an expensive hobby. This creates housing booms where developers try to meet demand by constructing residential areas. Hell, just look at South London. It's quickly becoming the land of the high-rise as more and more social housing stock is sold off to be demolished and rebuilt as wanky highpriced live in the city shoe boxes. Just look at where my dad's sidler family came from, the Haygate estate off the old Kent Road, where now you can buy a studio flat for just a small pocket change of £500,000. Sorry, I got a little bit sidelined there. I can go on for days about the ugly towers littering my hometown, but we're of course talking about Lagos, not London today. But although on another continent, it's the same stuff in a different place. Today, our setting is in the high area of Ikio. It connects to Lagos Island to the west and is at the edge of the Lagos Lagoon. It was developed in the 19th and 20th centuries as an area for the rich expatriate British community. As time went on, the expensive area began to see luxury high-rise apartments, shopping malls, and very expensive hotels. A successful development can yield big returns. As such, many developers set out to build in the expensive and exclusive part of the city. One such company is Forscore Homes and Investment Limited. It was registered on May 24th, 2001 as a private company limited by shares. At its head was a person called Fei Osabona with his wife Bolin and his two children. These were also named as co-directors as well as two other members of the public. The company was registered to a house owned by Paribona Femi's father. Femi had a bit of a rags to riches story as noted in the cable. I started selling shoes in July 1991 after I finished my H&D in the UK and later sold suits but I stopped in 1998 and I started real estate development and purchase of property in 1997. I also noticed that many Nigerians at that time were reluctant to go into construction but I believed anything was possible with God on my side. I built over 50 projects in London and Manchester and from there went to South Africa where I built a number of estates. Anyh who, he began in 1997 working on 113 Albian Drive London Fields in East London. The company would build developments in various countries during this time. Also at this time he became an evangelist for the Celestial Church of Christ and would often preach on the church's TV channel. So his next development would be back in his native Nigeria in the expensive Ikiot district. The project was to be called 360° Towers and would have free luxury high-rise buildings. The project began in early 2019 on Jared Road. It is one of the more expensive roads in the area and is not far from Coca-Cola, Nigeria's headquarters. All three towers were approved by the local authorities to have a floor count of 15 stories with each apartment having a starting price of a reported $1.2 million. At the helm of the construction was Fei himself with Emin engineer Degd Global Services Structural Engineer Prowess Engineers Limited and architect Voltron Company. Although details on the building's design aren't very clear, they were constructed with a pretty standard reinforced concrete slab supported by reinforced concrete columns. The development would prove to be rather popular with around 65% sold off plan. Not bad when looking at starting prices of over a million US at some point during the project. Tower freeze plan of 15 stories was extended to 21 but the planning authority was not informed of this. Now during construction after each floor was completed a test had to be undertaken to assess the quality of the concrete on the first two buildings and up to the fourth floor of the third test conducted showed the concrete to be of acceptable standard. All good, but Prowaris Engineering Limited would withdraw from the project using the following letter. Three, propose Jared Towers for Four Schools Limited reads, "This letter is to formally inform you of the withdrawal of our structural consultancy services from the above name project. We arrived at this decision due to the fact that we no longer share the same vision with you as our client in terms of how the project is being executed. We can guarantee the integrity of the first two buildings and also works done up to the fourth floor of the third building supervised by us provided specifications have been met in terms of the required concrete strength. This we do not have control over as we do not have the concrete cube tests for each stage of the building till date. Furthermore, we request that our company name and logo be removed from the project board and also kindly notify all necessary approving authorities of our withdrawal from the project. Something was most certainly not right, but FEMI continued on with the construction. However, the project would continue for over a year until June 2021 when the Lagos State Building Control Agency closed the site down. This was due to reported anonymies in the construction process. Although shut down, work would secretly continue against the authorities apparent knowledge. The third tower would continue to rise well until gravity would bring it down. But disaster. It is the 1st of November 2021 and construction workers cracking on at 360° towers. The project lead, Femio Sabona, is on site with his assistant alongside him. Workers are fitting out the free towers, which are in various states of completion. Although an exact number isn't known, it has been estimated that between 60 and 100 workers are on site today. Cracking sounds began ringing out around 14:44 in the afternoon. Within a minute, a massive crashing sound rang out. The entire structure collapsed into its footprint, crushing all within. As soon as the dust settled, anyone around the area flooded into the disaster scene, pouring through rubble and pulling out bodies and survivors alike. As rescue workers searched the ruins, cries for help could be heard. However, as the days went on, less and less survivors were found. Eventually, the missing list became the list of the dead. Rescue workers came under criticism as diggers were used to uncover areas, but in doing so covered over other sections of the ruins. Many of the responders were not properly trained, resulting in covering over potential survivors. A week or so after the digging, the death toll was estimated to be around 50. One body was dragged out from the rubble and was found to be project leader. The aftermath. Building collapses are a rather common thing in Lagos. Apart from giving Florida a run for its money in self-deconstructing buildings, it shows a general disregard for building regulations and its enforcement. An investigation was announced by Governor Sam Wuo who inaugurated a sixman panel to investigate the cause of the collapse. They came back with a verdict of improper building materials and practices, noting an absence of the required information on the hoarding outside the project. This should have had contact names and company information. However, the results of the report were not made public as the BBC would report in September 2024. However, the coroner in charge of finding the cause of death wasn't so closeted in their remarks again from the BBC. Chief Magistrate Oate Kalefe attributed the building collapse to the irresponsibility and negligence of the government agencies that were supposed to approve and supervise the plans and construction. Interestingly during the site survey post collapse another fourth building was discovered. Apparently this too had no proper permission for construction. Local authorities also claimed that they had not even heard of the company behind the project for school homes. And post collapse, the company was completely uncontactable, almost as if they had just vanished into thin air. The apparent mystery behind the company is not unheard of in the Nigerian property industry, as there are barely any ramifications for not following the rules. On top of that, accusations of bribes and false certificates are rife. and the cherry on top of the concrete cake. The state of Lagos in 2021 only had around a 100 building inspectors for a population estimated to be close to 35 million where thousands of construction projects are underway each year. This plays into the project expansion which went seemingly unchallenged. The third tower apparently was originally planned to only be six floors, which was then changed to 12, then 15, and then finally the fateful 21 floors. Although substandard construction materials were put to blame, there may have been another initiating event. In an anonymous interview with a worker in Premium Times, NG, works were being done on the first floor to replace cracked columns. This involved knocking them out to be replaced at a later date. One column that was being removed began to shake shortly before the building fell down. This was being done under the instruction of Femio Sabona and other engineering contractors. The idea of knocking out a supporting column to then rebuild is an insane thing to me, which just shows how out of depth the company behind the project was. On every level, the project was due all in the pursuit of profit. So to answer my question at the beginning of the video, no, Oabona probably wasn't a Nigerian Icarus. Instead, just another developer chancing their arm, which in this case didn't work out well for him. The remaining towers were demolished, but not without drama as investors tried getting their money back. So, it's scale time. It's going to be a five. And this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Please let me know in the comments below. This a plenty of full production. All videos on the channel are creative common attribution share like licensed plenty different videos produced by me John in a currently very cold corner of southern London UK. And all that's left to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music. Can you play us out please? >> [music] [music] >> It is June 1989 and the decision to shut down a nuclear reactor has been made. Fear in its country was pushing for a complete abandonment of its nuclear program. Although on the wider landscape, reactor shutdowns are not a good thing. In our subject today, it would be hard to argue to keep it open. It had only been running for a few short years, but racked up tens of [music] incidents. Like many problematic reactors, it is of an experimental design and a design which you probably haven't heard of. It uses radioactive pebbles for fuel. Don't worry, I'll dive into this deeper a bit later on in the video. So, the country I'm talking about is Germany, and the reactor is the ill- fated THTR300. Welcome to Playing Difficult. My name is John. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the glowing information in this video. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreons and YouTube members. You can get early access and add free plault videos from just £1 per month. [music] This is the German Chernobyl I alluded to in my RA2 disaster video. Even on the script, I've put Chernobyl in quote marks as it isn't really. However, it is in a strange way linked to the OBMK entering grenade mode as the reactor in today's video experienced a whoopsie just a short period after the old buggerup in the then USSR. With a nuclear disaster under its belt, Germany would completely rethink its power generation methods, arguably for the worst, as it would rely much heavier on fossil fuels from the well, east end of Europe. Saying it like that kind of makes it sound like Russia is the cocknney of Europe. An experimental reactor fuel. During the history of nuclear reactors, various different designs have popped up. And for today's subject, an experimental reactor is our main character. It is the THTR type or thorium helium cooled high temperature reactor. The important part here is the word thorium. You see, nuclear reactors most commonly are fueled by uranium 235, which only makes up barely 1% of all naturally occurring uranium. It's perfect for reactors because it can sustain a nuclear chain reaction. But its rarity is also its downfall in the sense that it's very expensive to mine and difficult to get your hands on. As such, scientists sought out to find a much easier to attain fuel type for nuclear reactors. Wouldn't it be grand if you could take something much more common and make it a file material? This is where thorium comes into play. You see, if you give the fertile thorium 235 an extra proton, you create thorium 233 which decays into protractinium 233 through beta decay. Then two and finally uranium 233 which is a file material. So in a thorium reactor, uranium 235 under goes a chain reaction which releases neutrons which is absorbed by the fertile thorium 232 which then creates your uranium 233. This allows less uranium 235 to be used. Thus in theory making fuel reactor easier and cheaper as well as needing fewer startup materials. apparently less nuclear waste and on top of that mining of forum is much easier and safer. But the forum reactor does have a few drawbacks. The big one is cost. That is they are far more expensive to construct, maintain and test. Even the fuel is more complex as it needs two types of material. The thorium and the uranium 235. So that's my idiot who also had a sound engineering degree short explanation of the theory of thorium fuel. I recommend a deeper dive going in with someone with a bigger science background. But at the end of the day it's all done just to boil water to generate steam to run a turbine to create electricity. Well, we're nearly 700 words into the video. I think it's time to talk about the actual THCR in particular. The THTR300. To say the THTR300 was experimental because it used forum is only half of the story. It had one other interesting feature. Do you know how most nuclear rectors have fuel rods? Well, the THTR300 didn't have that at all. Instead, it used things called pebbles. They're kind of exactly how you think, but instead of the things that wash up on the shore, they were balls made of thorium and uranium. Interesting side note that this is actually a video that does contain a lot of balls in it. The concept for the pebble bed reactor has been a longunning one dating back to the 1940s. However, the first proper crack at it came in the 1960s with the AVR reactor. I'm not going to attempt to pronounce it in German because just look at it. Anyh who, a bigger, more full scale reactor was envisioned which was to be the THTR300. The balls used within this reactor were 6 cm in diameter and were made up of graphite with particles of uranium 235 and thorium 232 embedded in it. [music] The graphite acted as a moderator and during operation approximately 670,000 balls are working through the system. Included in this number were some absorption balls made out of a similar material to the control rods. It did also have control rods as well for well controlling the reactor's power [music] level. The reactor core was inside a concrete pressure vessel. The fear of operation is as follows. The balls are continuously fed into the reactor core by a feed system. They enter at the top of the core and leave the core at the bottom. The two parts are called the addition device and the pellet extractor. After exiting the reactor, a computer system determines the condition of the fuel ball. If damaged, it is sent to a damaged fuel containment area. If it is burnt up and no longer useful, they are sent to the ball removal device where the fuel is sent off for reprocessing and disposal. I'll come back to how balls are added to the system in a few moments. But I should really mention another part of the reactor design that is of its cooling. Now the reactor uses helium, a gas that doesn't react to uranium as its [music] coolant. It is pushed around the core using fans at a pressure of 39 bar. It uses the ranking cycle to heat up water in an exchanger which then turns into steam to turn the turbines and then create electricity. And that's all pretty standard stuff. However, due to the coolant being gas, the reactor pressure vessel and auxiliary parts needed to be gastight. As such, when adding fuel balls to the system, escape of the high pressure, very hot and radioactive gases has to be avoided. The additional device has two control valves that work like an air lock. The type that you get on say maybe a spaceship. The ball is added and the inlet valve was closed behind it. The chamber is then pressurized and after the required pressure is met, the outlet valve is opened allowing the balls to enter into the refueling system. After the outlet valve is closed, the lock is relieved in two steps. In the first step to a pressure of 1.1 bar in the container and the second step into the exhaust air chimney. The addition device is normally operated automatically. However, it can be operated manually when required. for example, when adding less than the 60 balls allowed in the software programming. Now, the THTR generated, you guessed it, 300 megawatt of electricity. Construction took place between 1970 and 1983, achieving criticality in the same year. It would not generate electricity until 1985, and the highly complex reactor would prove to be rather problematic. Which leads us onto the disaster. The disaster. It is the evening of the 4th of May, 1986, and an operator at the THTR300 is preparing to manually load the reactor system. They requested by the plant physicist to add 40 absorbables. Now, they opted not to use the automatic system today due to the number of balls. It is optimized for loads of 60. Thus, being asked to insert 40 could cause issues. However, running in manual mode opens up its own risks in that you can make a mistake. The reactor is running at an output of roughly 40% of its normal maximum output. And all seems good. However, as the operator began the loading process, they made a mistake. The chamber was filled with helium. When the operator opened the automatic outlet valve, the automatic seal monitoring of the valve was activated and the connection between the valve and the relief vessel opened. This prevented the balls from entering the system. In doing so, radioactive gases were able to escape into the chamber. Noticing that no balls had entered the system, the operator switched to the additional device back into automatic mode. This would prove to be another error. As you see, part of the automatic program, the chamber was meant to be vented to atmosphere, which in our case was filled with radioactive gases. The vent opened and aeros cells of around 50 beles of radioactivity were released. Now, this isn't a massive amount. The reactor was allowed to release around 10 beules per day, but it would be significant for another reason, which I'll come back to in a little bit. Anyways, the operator realized their mistake and closed the chamber. However, a surge of gases shattered some of the balls destined to enter the system. The system was shut down after this, and roughly from start to finish, the whole event had only lasted 20 or so minutes, but those 20 minutes would contribute to the changing of a whole country's power generation course. The aftermath. In the immediate aftermath, the reactor was shut down, but would be brought back online after improvements by adding a filtration system to the exhaust chimney and better instructions and procedures on the feeding system. The event was played down initially. An anomalous informant from staff of the THTR reactor informed supervisory authorities and environmental associations about a not reported emission on the 4th of May 1986. The nails were firmly in the coffin for the reactor. You see, the radiation release was pretty minimal, barely exceeding the 180day emissions limits. Any other time, the event would have probably just been a footnote. and a non-reporting would not have probably been noticed. But a small case of a selfdeconstructed RBMK reactor you probably haven't heard of in a place called Chernobyl occurred on the 26th of April. Due to this disaster, all across Europe, radiation monitoring was on high alert as a radioactive cloud drifted over Germany and the rest of Europe. During this time, heightened rates of cesium 137 were found. Amongst other radioactive isotopes was protactinium or PA233. What was interesting was that the PA233 is a direct indication of a release from a thorium fueled reactor. This was not from Chernobyl. Thus, something must have happened at the nearest thorium reactor, the THTR300. [snorts] As such, an official investigation was launched into emission release. It was found that the release wasn't massive. However, with her own micro Chernobyl right after the real Chernobyl, the problematic experimental reactor had to go. Germany had a very longunning anti-uclear movement. Protests often manifested throughout the years whenever an incident at a nuclear power station had occurred anywhere else in the world. Take for example this picture. Post Freemile Island. Just 2 years after the release, the reactor was shut down and deactivated in 1989, not long before reunification of Germany and the further culling of nuclear power stations that came with it from the former East Germany. By 2023, all of Germany's nuclear power stations have been shut down. Interestingly, the country in the same year had a consumption of fossil fuel sources that accounted for 77.6 of the country's energy usage. Personally, I think it was a little bit shortsighted, but hey, it's not my place to judge. So, that's my video on the THTR300 reactor. Do you have any more reactor disasters to suggest? Let me know in the comments below. So, it's scale time. It's going to be a one. And this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. This is a plain difficult production. All videos on the channel are created commas attribution share like licensed plane difficult videos produced by me John in a currently cold corner of southern London UK. And all there to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music. Can you play us out please? >> [music] >> So, before we start this week's video, I'm really proud to announce that I have a new album out. is currently on pre-order, so feel free to check it out. There's CDs and limited edition cassette tapes available. Right now, without any further ado, let's get started on this week's video. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon and YouTube members. If you want to watch my videos early access nadree, then you can from £1 per month. Oh, and also I have Kofi as well, so feel free to check that out. The history of vaccinations is an interesting story. It is a history of how mankind has arguably managed to elevate itself from the animal kingdom. And in addition to things like germ theory and improvements in hygiene, we have been able to beat back many different diseases. Although a fascinating journey spanning hundreds, if not thousands of years, it hasn't been a particularly easy one. Part of vaccine study always involves some kind of animal rather than human testing. The human side of things is ethically sound if the participants are willing and aware of the risks. But this is a dark side of science video, so our story today will be far from ethical. What do you think could be more cruel? Knowingly infecting children with a disease or testing out vaccines against their knowledge? Well, today's video is not either or, but both. Oh, and to make it even more morally rotten, the children all had mental health conditions. The study would be noted by a contemporary vaccinologist Maurice Hillerman as the most unethical medical experiments ever performed on children in the United States. But before we start, I've got to say, don't drink the chocolate milkshake. Don't worry, this will make a bit of sense later on. Today, we're looking at the Willoughbrook Hepatitis study. Welcome to Dark Side of Science and my name is John. Can you call it a school? This is the neighborhood of Willoughbrook in Staten Island, New York. Up until the Second World War, the area was mainly the home to agricultural production. However, a military hospital was built during the war. The original plans for the site, however, was for a children's hospital for the disabled. But understandably, the war effort trumped that old idea. Postwar the site was wrestled back off the army for its original use. when in 1947 the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene took over and opened the Willoughbrook State School. When opened, the school had a maximum capacity of 4,000 students, although quickly the number would be exceeding 6,000 by the 1960s. During the first 10 years of operation, it was discovered that students would become infected with multiple diseases. Hygiene was something of a notion rather than a reality as children were essentially just left to their own devices. And one such disease that was rife amongst the children was of hepatitis. Hepatitis. Now hepatitis has been a blight for humans for thousands of years. You see it is the inflammation of the liver. This caused a condition called jaundice where your skin and eyes go yellow. However, the cause was unknown until relatively recently. It is classified into the following categories: infectious, metabolic, ismic, autoimmune, genetic, and other. Now, for today, we're only interested in infectious causes of hepatitis. And the most common form of infectious hepatitis is from viruses. Multiple viruses can cause hepatitis. They aren't all related. Thus, tracing down the disease is a rather complex affair. What was known was that hepatitis can be caused by contact with an infected person's feces or blood. During the Second World War, among other diseases, hepatitis was rife, and this posed a significant risk. It was caused by unsanitary conditions soldiers experienced as well as vaccines which were administered to soldiers. Bees had human blood products in them, thus enabling the transfer of the illness. One side effect of this was an increased need to figure out and find a vaccine for hepatitis. This period of time was a golden age of messed up experimentation in trying to find a cure for many common infectious diseases. The Tuskegee study and the State Field Prison study jump to mind. These dealt with malaria and syphilis, respectively. But what of hepatitis? Well, an enterprising doctor would see the plague pit known as Willowbrook State School as the perfect playing ground to probe into hepatitis. The doctor. This is Dr. Saul Krugman born in 1911 in Bronx, New York to Russian Jewish parents. He attended Ohio State University starting in 1929 and after moving to the University of Richmond, Virginia in 1934, he received his medical degree from the Medical College of Virginia in 1939. This was not the best time to be coming of age as the US would soon be drawn into war just a couple of years later. Like many of his peers, he would join up to the military and with medical degree, he got the job of flight surgeon, serving mainly in the South Pacific theater until his discharge in 1946. Leaving the forces with the rank of captain, Saul set about creating a career for himself. Initially as an intern, he eventually managed to get a job at the New York University School of Medicine where he began his research into infectious diseases, mainly measles and hepatitis. He wanted to explore the world of hepatitis vaccine. Dr. Krugman was, as said by himself in his 1986 paper, The Willoughbrook Hepatitis Studies Revisited. My colleague, Dr. Robert Ward and I were invited to join the staff at Willougherbrook State School as consultants in infectious diseases. And they would end up being a lot more than just consultants. The study begins. Starting in 1955, Krugman set out to carry out an extensive epidemiological survey of the school. They during this period found that the most likely form of hepatitis was of the A type. Again, from Saul Krugman's 1986 paper, all of the evidence indicated that the endemic disease was so-called infectious or type A hepatitis, an infection that spread via the fecal oral route. The disease was mild and there were no deaths during this period, but it can be fatal. After the year of observation, the study proper was to begin. It was found that between 80 and 90% of children in the school had or had had hepatitis. Thus, there was a high chance of any new admittance catching the disease. Krugman thought if they were going to get it anyway, why not give it to them deliberately for a vaccine study? You see, it was known from studies in the 1940s that post infection of hepatitis A patients develop lifelong immunity. The body produces IGG anti- HIV antibodies that persist after the infection. Thus, if infected with hepatitis A, then they could be studied and their immunity could be isolated. Krugman set out his plans and proposed it in 1956 to the executive faculty New York University School of Medicine, New York Department of Mental Hygiene, New York State Department of Health and the Armed Epidemological Board. He would set aside new inmates of the school as they are enrolled and be housed in a specially equipped and staffed unit where they would be isolated from other infectious diseases. Plus, only children whose parents would give consent would be included. But the way of consent that was gained was less than ethical. Often s depended upon and played to the parents being desperate for their children to be admitted to the school. It was at the time one of the only options for children with severe disabilities in the area and thus there was a very long waiting list. He offered an opportunity to sign up for the study and forgo the lengthy admission process. Now, the one thing that was emitted from the consent was that the children would be deliberately infected with material known from hepatitis patients, essentially making them human guinea pigs. But how would Krugman give his new subjects hepatitis? Well, as all parents know, children love sweet things, and a drink everyone loves is that of milkshakes. I love them, you love them, and you should never trust a person who doesn't love them. So, we know feces is effective at transmitting hepatitis, and children love milkshakes. How about combining the two to make a disgusting but effective disease transmission concoction? Saul and his team would observe how long between controlled exposure to onset of symptoms would the disease take to occur. During the observations, they found that patients would get the disease and eventually get better. However, Krugman wanted to find out if reinfection was possible. Thus, he would give the chocolate milkshake to the children again and again. However, by 1967, it was obvious that many children had experienced two attacks of hepatitis, hinting at potentially another strain of the disease. After the discovery of hepatitis B around the same time, Krugman was able to confirm that there were two strains of A and B and that both had been prevalent since they had begun their study in 1956. Next, crewman wanted to test a potential hepatitis vaccine. And where else would you want to give it a try? Why not on the disabled students of Willbbrick? He created this by boiling a 1 to 10 dilution of serum from a hepatitis B patient in distilled water. It was found to be immunogenic and thus paved the way for future vaccine testing. He would undertake vaccine challenge experiments where a child would be vaccinated then deliberately exposed over and over again to hepatitis. The study would eventually end in the early 1970s. All during this period, Krugman had released multiple papers documenting his studies. Now, although having the backing of a long list of organizations, including the school, during the study, his experiments at Willoughbrook as a whole would come under severe scrutiny. Legacy Unlike many dark side of science subjects I've covered before, the Willoughbrook studies were met with criticism even whilst they are being undertaken. In 1966, the Willoughbrook studies were given as an example of an unethical study in Henry K. Beachch's article, Ethics and Clinical Research. Clearly, it was unethical with a lack of informed consent of the subjects, which resulted in deliberate infection of a potentially deadly disease. The participants had nothing to gain whatsoever from the study. The ethics of the study find themselves at the center of many debates over the years. Some say the study results outweighed the risks. In the wake of this and of other horrendous experiments in 1974, the National Research Act was brought into place as an attempt to regulate human experimentation a little bit more. However, its effectiveness around the time was a bit debatable. But although condemned by some, that didn't mean that Krugman didn't win praise out of his studies. His career would go from strength to strength, winning multiple awards for his work at the school. He was promoted to the head of the American Pediatric Society in the early 1970s. But what of Willowbrook? The school as a whole was pretty controversial. It had come under scrutiny in 1965 after a visit from Robert F. Kennedy with a TV crew showed the horrendous conditions. He described the school as having dehumanizing conditions and that was for the children outside of the hepatitis study. The school would get shut down in 1987 with inmates being rehomed at different institutions across the state of New York. The study does have a long reach to the modern day. Just a few years ago during covid vaccine studies the same methodology of challenge testing was used where vaccinated individuals would be deliberately exposed to covid to test its efficacy which has been thought as possibly unnecessary in hindsight by some across the scientific community. So the more you know eh this is a plane difficult production. All videos on the channel are creative common actuation shite licensed playing difficult videos from me John in a currently very wet and windy corner of southern London UK and all that's left to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music play us out please. [music] It is Thursday, the 13th of September, 2018, and all is normal across the town of Andover, Massachusetts. The afternoon has been a calm one. Well, not for much longer. The quiet is interrupted by multiple explosions across multiple homes. As residents escape their houses and flee into the street, a horrific view is on display. Multiple properties are on fire. However, the experience of Andover is not unique. The same is unfolding across two other towns today. Some kind of explosive disaster has happened across over a 100 buildings. In the wake, a whole community would be devastated in a flameridden catastrophe costing an estimated $1 billion. But what happened? Well, being a plainly difficult video, it is of course going to involve some kind of balls up. Welcome to Plainly Difficult. My name is John and today we're covering the Merryac Valley gas explosions. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my YouTube and Patreon members. If you'd want to watch future videos ad free and early access, then how about you give it a crack? Also, as always, I'd love to get some likes, comments, and subscribes because, you know, I've got to beg for some interaction somehow. The Marramac Valley. The Marramac Valley is a bystate area spanning both Massachusetts and New Hampshire along the Marramac River. Okay, so I know our story is called the Marramac Valley explosions, but the area of focus for this video is only a couple of towns on the Massachusetts side. More specifically, the towns of Lawrence, Andover, and North Andover. These free towns have been the home of settlements as far back as the mid600s. Over the centuries, they would expand and develop into modern residential areas with the usual modcons you'd expect. You know, like electricity and heating and hot water, usually supplied by natural gas. Now, cutting to the point and again for our story, we're going to focus on the natural gas side of supplies. The area is supplied locally by a company called Nyource Incorporated. It is an Indiana based energy holding company with subsidiaries specializing in natural gas supply networks. The company is responsible for 325 natural gas customers in the region running over 60,000 mi of pipeline of both high pressure long-d distanceance lines and low pressure local lines. So, how's the gas supplied on their network to a household? Well, as I mentioned just a few lines above, the gas is transported via two types of lime, high pressure and low pressure. This is because transmission over large distances requires a quite a bit of push. But when in your home, your boiler, hob, or any other appliance running off natural gas needs a slightly lower pressure in order to reduce the pressure off the main line, things called regulator stations are employed. They work like this. Each station contains two regulators in series. One called a worker and another called a monitor regulator. Each has a feedback line that senses the pressure in the low pressure main from the regulator forming a redundant closed loop system. If too little pressure is sensed in on the low pressure side, then the valve in the regulator is opened increasing the flow. And conversely, if the pressure is too high, the regulator senses this on the feedback loop and thus closes the valve a little bit. The worker regulator is the main regulator that keeps the required natural gas pressure and the monitor provides a backup to the worker regulator. From the regulator station, the line is now low pressure and it runs to each meter outside each property. Although nice and simple, the system has an inherent flaw. That is if there's an issue with over pressure in the line, then every house on the same pipeline will experience it in its potentially explosive glory. So the low pressure line ran at 0.5 psig from roughly 75 psig in the high pressure line. So you really want those regulators doing their job. Now in our story, some of the main lines in the area was still cast iron and although very strong after time they can be victim to rust and as such works to replace with more modern polyherine was undertaken which is the story for September the 13th 2018 where contractors working on behalf of Nice Sourc's Massachusetts subsidiary CMA are replacing some old cast iron pipe work. the disaster. It is the morning of the 13th of September 2018 and engineers are getting ready for some pipe work replacement. This is from cast iron to polyethane. The company is called Feny Brothers. At around 7:00 a.m., a crew of four workers and a CMA representative are at Salem and South Union Streets in Lawrence, Massachusetts. During the work, the old cast iron pipeline was bypassed with a 2-in plastic pipeline with a valve at each end. Once the replacement works were complete, the old cast iron man was to be abandoned. However, the crew had not done something very important during their work. That is tie in the new pipe to the vital sensing line at the regulator station. Instead, it was left on the soontobe abandoned main. They completed their works about 4:00. This was when the workers closed off the valves to the bypass line and then cut the pipe. A couple of minutes later, pressure was observed on the low pressure gas mane and it was rising well past expected levels. A gas fitting blew off the plastic main. Quickly, the workers replaced it, but off in the distance, they could see smoke rising in all directions. What they didn't know was that at the Winthrop regulator station roughly half a mile down the road, the new isolated cast iron man, which was still attached to the sensing line, had began indicating low pressure. The low level caused the regulator to open fully, pushing high pressure gas into the low pressure system. Quickly after 4 p.m., multiple 911 calls started inundating dispatchers of cases of buildings exploding. Houses across Andover, North Andover, and Lawrence were randomly blowing up and bursting into flames. Fire stations in the area quickly became inundated with calls with fires being tackled all the way into the evening. One of the flaming homes that exploded caused its brick chimney to collapse and sadly it landed on a car in which an 18-year-old was sitting. He was killed by the collapsed structure. Whilst all the carnage was unfolding, back in a nice gas systems control monitoring center, which was based in Columbus, Ohio, started receiving pressure alarms. The system that was in operation was a good old friend of the channel, a scarter system, also known as a supervisory control and data acquisition system. It recorded a sudden increase in pressure on the low pressure natural gas system in the Marramac Valley. The Scarda system could only monitor and not control the low pressure main. Instead, the controller had to call up the on call technician to go and investigate. And this was around 5 minutes past 400 p.m. The on call technician saw multiple plumes of smoke around the Marramac Valley. He called in his findings to the control room. Multiple technicians were dispatched to perform checks on the regulation stations in the region, which was a number of 14. They were trying to find out if any were supplying high-pressure gas. A field operations lead and a CMA staff member were pulled off a job and sent to the work site at Salem and South Union Streets. Upon arriving, they confirmed that the pressure was normal when the bypass line was fitted. Knowing that the spike only occurred after the abandoned line, the operations lead then went and took a reading at a nearby house, confirming a high pressure reading of 2.5 psig. He then went and called the control room and requested shutting off all gas to the area. Once this was done and all isolations were made, the pressure finally dropped. The disaster was finally over. However, it would take until around 7:00 p.m. for all the fires to be extinguished. The afternoon had overwhelmed local fire departments with three stations being at its maximum callout number. The explosions had caused an estimated cost in excess of $1 billion. An insane amount of money, but hardly surprising as an entire neighborhood exploded. But now, let's have a look at the aftermath. Aftermath. Local residents who hadn't had their houses pulverized were advised to switch off their gas supply and to leave the area. This caused massive backups of escaping vehicles. Due to the sheer numbers of people, Route 125 was temporarily converted to one-way only traffic in order to allow space for the fleeing residents. Eventually, a day after the explosion, many residents were permitted to return, but many would be without gas for quite a while. As such, the National Guard delivered around 7,000 hot plates to customers to allow residents to cook some hot food. Eventually, the low pressure gas system would be replaced with an all high pressure system where each house has its own regulator to bring the pressure down to household requirements. This is a safer setup as a failed regulator will only damage one house rather than a whole street. Not surprisingly, multiple class action lawsuits were hit at the company for negligence and destruction of property. They were eventually settled by Columbia Gas for $143 million in July 2019. The company pleaded no contest to charges relating to federal pipeline regulations and were forced to sell its distribution part of the business to Eversource Energy and pay a fine of $53 million. Ouch. Now, a very long-term buddy of the channel would crawl out from the woodwork. This is of course the NTSB as they for some reason are in charge of finding out any pipeline disaster causes. Within a day of the explosions, NTSB investigators would descend upon the Marramac Valley and would begin picking over the wreckage of houses and importantly the pipe replacement works. Quickly they found that the engineers on the 13th of September had failed to change over the sensing line from the old pipe to the new as part of the replacement works. It's not all the workers fault though as the procedure set out by Columbia Gas didn't mention the sensing line and the company's risk assessment process was rather lackluster. They also did not properly document an area before undertaking any work, and it was found that the control room was overwhelmed by the disaster, meaning they didn't have very good disaster management plans in place. It seems Colombia Gas of Massachusetts was just winging it really, and the NTSB would note this in its probable cause. The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the overpressurization of the natural gas distribution system and resulting fires and explosions was Colombia Gas of Massachusetts weak engineering management that did not adequately plan, review, sequence, and oversee the construction project that led to the abandonment of a cast iron man without first relocating regular sensing lines to the new polyethylene main. Contributing to the accident was a low pressure natural gas distribution system designed and operated without adequate over pressure protection. As I mentioned, the newer and safest system was eventually brought into place. However, there is always still a risk which makes me rather concerned about my own gas supply. So, that's my video on the Marramac Valley Explosions is going to be a free on my scale and this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? I'd love to see what you think in the comments below. This a playful production. All videos on the channel with creative comments attribution share like licensed playful videos by me John in a currently very cold and groy corner of southern London UK. And all I have to say is thank you ever so much for watching and can Mr. Music Man give us some music to play us out please. [music] It is the 7th of April, 1982, and newspapers throughout the San Francisco area are leading with a terrible disaster. In the middle of the night, a major arterial route has suffered a nightmarish tragedy. The one thing you wouldn't want to happen has happened. That is a car crash and a massive fuel fire inside the tunnel. Something Michael Bay probably would have been proud of. But if that wasn't terrible enough, the intense fire was from a fuel tanker full of petroleum. The disaster would result in multiple deaths, multiple vehicles completely destroyed, and millions of dollars of damage to a vital piece of California infrastructure. But what was the cause and could it have been prevented? Well, keep watching to the end to find out. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my lovely patreons and YouTube members. If you want to see playing difficult videos early and adree then why not give it a crack and also don't forget to subscribe as it really helps the channel in the YouTube algorithm gods and such the tunnel. Before we get into the disaster, we need to set the scene of our story. And although tragedy was sprout in 1982, our roots go all the way back to the 1920s. This big thing is the Berkeley Hills. It poses a bit of an obstacle for traveling from east towards San Francisco. Traffic had to snake its way over the hill and down Harvard Canyon. Needless to say, this was less than ideal for efficiency and journey times. As such, over the years, several plans for a tunnel in the area have been bounced about with works being attempted in the late 1880s. One was even completed for one-way travel in 1903. It was given the name the intercount tunnel, but something more substantial was in the works just 20 years later. In 1926, the counties of Amedia, Contra Costa, and the city of Oakland settled on replacing the old tunnel with a new route for the Berkeley Hills. The initial surveys and groundwork began in 1931 with the first vehicles driving through the tunnel in 1937. The tunnel would become the victim of its own success, rapidly turning the surrounding areas from agricultural to commuter sprawling suburbs. This meant there were more cars on the road and as such by the 1960s another bore was planned. There were around 50,000 vehicles per day traveling through the tunnel in the early 1960s. This amount of traffic was sufficient to require an additional bore. However, in a case of very good forward thinking, land was purchased to accommodate two extra balls. So this third ball was completed in 1964 and came with some modern at the time improvements such as flow reversal where the direction of traffic could be changed to suit the traffic levels throughout the day as well as other bits of safety kit. The highway that the tunnel carries is route 24 and had a maximum speed of 55 mph. However, through the tunnel this speed was reduced to 50 mph. as this materials were allowed to be transported through the tunnel and there were no laned closed indicators within it. If there was an accident, there was no way for anyone entering the tunnel to know until they came across it, which I'm sure created some rather underwear soiling situations. So, from now on, when I'm talking about the tunnel, I'm only going to be describing the North, which was the newer one built in the 1960s. And this was the one that would be the setting for our disaster. The tunnel was 3,371 ft long and from east to west was a downhill gradient. When driving along it, there was a slight bend then straight section followed by another bend. This meant that you couldn't see along the entire length of the bore. The floor of the tunnel was made of Portland cement with a groove pattern. This helped the grip and water dispersion. The walls were also covered in the same material. In these kind of tunnels, you need to have a clean air supply when vehicles are driving through. And in our case, the tunnel's air was drawn in through duct work on the west side and pumped out on the east side of the tunnel. Each side of the tunnel had a walkway of roughly 2t wide. There were CCTV cameras at the entrance and exit to monitor traffic in the control room. However, there were no cameras within the tunnel. There were tunnel telephones evenly spaced throughout the bore and there were three connecting tunnels on the south sidewall which allowed people to walk between the BS. Accidents were semi-regular which is hardly a surprise being that the route sees over 50,000 cars alone per day. There was an estimated average of around one crash per month. Luckily, in the preceding 3 years before 1982, no one had died in any crash in the tunnel. However, this would change on the 7th of April the same year. The disaster. It is the final minutes of the 6th of April, 1982, and a 1978 Honda Accord is driving along Route 24. At 12 minutes 12 on the 7th of April, the car approaches the entrance portal at the east end of the Cowicott Tunnel. The car started to veer and it went out of control, eventually crashing into the tunnel wall. Multiple vehicles following were able to avoid colliding with the Honda. The crash vehicle had come to arrest in the left lane or a fast lane. The driver got out to inspect the damage. Her car had caused a bit of an obstacle, hindering the traffic flow and [music] creating a pinch point. Just a few minutes later, a tanker pulling a tanker trailer entered the tunnel, followed quickly by an empty school bus behind it. The crash site was roughly half the way down the tunnel. After the first bend, the tanker was doing about 45 mph. It reached the crash car and it slammed into the rear of the Honda. The sudden stop resulted in the following bus crashing into both the Honda and the tanker. In the impact, the bus driver was thrown out through the windscreen. The bus, although now Sam's driver, continued on out the tunnel, coming to arrest on the western end. Fuel was now leaking from the tanker's tank trailer. The driver saw this and after discovering that his truck was immovable, he decided to escape the tunnel. The pooling fuel was ignited and flames started licking around the truck. Fuel was also flowing down the tunnel's drainage system. But as fuel flowed down, smoke from the increasing fire started driving up the gradient. Like what we saw in the Capran disaster, the tunnel became a massive chimney. The effect of this was that cars entering the tunnel were quickly hit with a wall of all consuming smoke. Some were lucky and managed to reverse out safely, but four vehicles were consumed by the smoke. This was another truck, two pickups, and a car. One of the pickups occupants left the vehicle and started walking uphill. They made it to an emergency phone where they're able to call for help, but the flames grew and thus the smoke and they were succumbed to by noxious fumes. Meanwhile, the CCTV feed had caught the driverless bus exit the tunnel and was observed by the tunnel control room crew. The alarm was raised and the California Highway Patrol and Fire Services were informed. Fire services entered the scene and ordered the storm drain valves be closed to allow fuel to flow out of [music] the tunnel. By around 1:00 a.m. two twoman crew in protective equipment entered the tunnel and started discovering bodies. In total, seven were found. This included the Honda driver, the bus driver, two from a truck, two from a car, and another one from a pickup. The fire had caused damage to the tunnel's water mane. Thus, it made using water to extinguish the fire an almost impossible task. Because of this, the decision was made to let the fire just burn out. This would finally be over by just before 300 a.m. The tunnel was significantly damaged. However, it structural integrity wasn't affected. Tiles on the wall, communications cabling, and water pipes were damaged and would require replacement. The bore was shut for months, whilst a couple million repair job was undertaken. Of course, the crash had to be investigated, and this welcomes a big time channel friend, the NTSB, to our story. The investigation. As part of the investigation efforts, the wrecked cars were pulled from the tunnel and poured over. After this, a crash sequence was finalized, which is what I used to base the disaster portion of this video on. The dead were autopsied, and all but one had died from smoke inhalation. The odd one out was the launched bus driver. Interestingly, the cause of the Honda's erratic driving was found. The driver was over the legal drink drive limit. Ah, so that was the cause. It was rather simple, but initially the crash had caused no one injured. The Honda driver was able to get out and check the damage after all. So that means the wider disaster is down to a more infrastructure problem. Clearly, it was the lack of information available to the proceeding vehicles. The NTSB would state this in their probable cause section after putting the initial blame on the drunken driver. Also contributing to the severity of the accident and injuries were the lack of adequate monitoring capabilities and variable message signs or traffic signs at the entrance of the tunnel and within the tunnel and lack of communication system between the tunnel personnel and tunnel occupants which if present might have facilitated occupant evacuation. In the aftermath, a few safety improvements were brought in, which included better accident information for road users, and one big one, which [music] was limiting hazardous material trucks from traveling through the tunnel to only between the hours of 3:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. This pretty much forced all dangerous good vehicles out of the tunnel to then find an alternative route. This pretty much forced all hazardless vehicles to just avoid the tunnel altogether. So that's my video on the Cocott tunnel fire. It's going to be a three on the disaster scale and this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. So do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a plain production. All videos on the channel are creative commas attribution share a light licensed plenty of videos produced by me John in a currently miserable gray wet corner of southern London UK. I'd like to thank you all very much for watching and as always Mr. Music, can you play us out please? The scrap of land in this picture looks rather unimportant. It is a part of a theme park, although here it doesn't look very exciting, but it was the site once of a ride. However, it was also the site of a tragedy. A place that once offered an exhilarating experience was a cause of the loss of four lives. The park is Dreamworld in Queensland, Australia. And the ride was the Thunder River Rapids Ride, an in-house developed water rapid experience. During its heyday, it was one of the theme park's most [music] visited attractions, being one of the familyfriendly rides on offer. The accident would focus a light on how disaster can come from something so unthreatening as a theme park ride. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi supporters. If you want early access and adree videos, then you can from just £1 a month. And for higher tiers, you can even get your lovely name here at the start of the video. The dream world that would turn into a nightmare for some. Okay, that was a bit of a mouthful of a title card, but we are where we are. Our story begins with the registration of a trademark. This was the name of Dreamworld, registered in 1973 to businessman John Longhurst. Longhurst envisioned his own Australian take on the Disney theme park. To enable this plan, he purchased 85 hectares or 210 acres of land in 1974 and set about building his very own dream world. I should say the site he bought was in Kumra, Gold Coast, Queensland. His inspiration from Disney was pretty obvious, even hiring ex Disney designers to bring his park to life. He would later remark on the similarity of the entrance building to his park in an interview with rur.auu. I knew that Disney was just the most wonderful place and the first thing you saw was the Disneyland station and it was always in my eyes. The most magnificent thing as you walked up there, it was sitting up high. Often the same train was in front of it, but this magnificent building, which was a railway station, sitting up there, and I thought, I'm going to make my entryway look like that station. John had made his money from a lawn mower business, but interestingly, he began the digging work on the park all by himself with a digger he had bought and had shipped over from Sydney. He would gain financial backers and gradually his plot formed into what looked like a theme park. The park would initially open its first section to the public in December 1981 and after only 4 months of operation. Over 250,000 guests would pass through Dreamworld's gates. The park had a mix of fill and family rides, boasting Australia's first looping roller coaster and the park's own six-story IMAX screen. Over the following years, the park would add and grow different themed areas. By 1985, there were seven areas themed off different parts of the world, aiming to give patrons of the park a full highquality experience on par with, well, you guessed it, Disney. In 1986, a new area would open and along with 7-day trading, the site went from strength to strength. This eighth area is very important for today's video, as it is the location of our disaster later on. This was Gold Rush Country. It was themed after 19th century mining and gold speculation in Australia and the USA. It's a theme that often pops up in different theme parks. The Dream World's rendition will feel pretty familiar. It had a runaway train style ride and a river rapids ride upon opening on the 11th of December 1986. The new area also boasted a new train station for the Dream World Express as well as various themed shops and areas. Now, the second ride that was open in the area when it opened up in December 1986 was heavily inspired by a new style of ride for the time. This was the River Rapids ride concept, initiated by Swiss company Intermin, the first of which opened in 1980 in Six Flags Astroorld. The ride type was pretty popular, hence being included at Dream World's new area. The ride at Dreamworld ran like this. After boarding a sixperson raft at a ride station, it is dispatched and pushed along the ride's water flow. Guests are treated to a number of sections of calm and rough waters through troughs and tunnels, one section of which went under the minecart ride station building, which was a foam mountain. The ride reached a top speed of around 45 km an hour after being thrashed and splashed around each ride vehicle is brought up and then down to the ride station via a conveyor system. In total, the ride would have a roughly 4-minute journey time from station back to the station. The waves were generated by logs placed along the ride's troughs. This created the intended turbulence to make the ride experience exciting. The conveyor dragged the ride vehicles up over a crest to create a small ramp down into the ride station, which had a constant flow of pumped water running along it. Now, the conveyor system has wooden slats spaced equally apart along the pulling chain, which along the conveyor's chain, which the ride vehicle sat on when being pulled back towards the ride station. This had a few purposes. One was obviously a place for the ride vehicles to sit on, but it also offered a space if a ride guest was to fall off, so they wouldn't get mangled up by the machinery below. And thirdly, they offered somewhat protection from the raft being caught up and getting turned over. Various parts of the ride were built by different contractors. For example, the ride vehicles being supplied by a Sydneybased company and the rest of the parts largely being from off the shelf. For example, motors and pumps being used for the conveyor and water management systems respectively. So, the ride needs water to work. Hardly a shocking statement, I know, but the pumping of water was a vital part as due to the backflow of the water pumps. Without them running, the troughs would empty themselves. Thus, the vessels would all just sit not being moved. The ride had two pumps, but right from the start, they had experienced issues. They often cut out due to overloading. This would be a constant issue that never really got fixed. The electrical system was set up for both pumps, so then they could be operated individually from one another on the operator's control panel. Now, over the years, the ride would be modified and upgraded. Some modifications were better than others, like more modern ride controls, but others would prove to be not so good. Within a few years, the conveyor system was showing signs of fatigue. In 1988, an incident unfolded where a part of the conveyor shaft at the tail end sheared off. This caused 25 of the wooden slats to be smashed up. It required a partial rebuild. The two chains were salvageable. However, just a year later, another incident occurred that damaged three slats, pointing to a common issue. As such, around this time, the decision was made to remove every two in three slats to reduce the strain on the conveyor system. Interestingly, this seems to have been a unique modification for Dreamworld. As stated in Imm.org's report into the incident, there does not seem to be a theme park anywhere else that has made this change. Throughout the ride, load, and unloading station areas, the channel that the raft sat in had support rails. They have been installed after the removal of the ride's original turntable. These were to keep the vehicles level during loading and prevented them from being tipped up. However, there was a small flaw here as there is a gap between the end of the conveyor system and the start of the guide rails when the water was flowing. This isn't a problem as the ride vehicles just float over, but this could be an issue due to low or no water incidents which would lead us onto the disaster. disaster. It is the afternoon of the 25th of October, 2016, and Dreamw World's Day of Amusements are in full-blown swing. The morning and lunchtime have proved to be a little troublesome for the River Rapids ride. The South Pump tripped out twice, each time requiring evacuation of all guests and fully resetting the ride and refilling it with water. During the pre-operation inspections in the morning, the ride had seemed pretty fine, and the operators, after completing their checks, accepted the ride for its opening time of 10 a.m. The whole week leading up to today has been a bit of a nightmare for operators, with the ride constantly tripping out. It was reset on the disaster day just after 1:00 p.m. And once again, guests were welcomed to the ride. Today, like every operational day, the ride is operating with two operators. The number one, who is in charge of the actual working of the ride, and the number two, he's there to help with loading and unloading. Both roles require specific training. Usually, operator one is the more experienced person. Today, the operator 2 position is being manned by a member of staff with little experience on the ride. Although the staff member having around two years of experience at the park, they had only been trained for their day's position that morning. After the second ride restart, the number one operator was relieved for the afternoon. The relief is an experienced member of staff with over four years at the park. During the handover, they were informed of the pump issues plaguing the day. The two operators ran the ride for approximately 20 minutes or so, loading, unloading, and dispatching guests on the rafts. The second operator wanted to swap positions so she could man the main panel, but she struggled to get the attention of operator number one. Raft 6 was loaded and released into the water trough at roughly 2 p.m., followed by raft 5 around a minute later. Both rafts would get to the conveyor in around 4 minutes time. The two rafts were roughly 1 minute apart and their occupants had fun as they crashed around the rapids as intended. At 4 minutes past 2, the south pump began to fail. Quickly, the water level lowered. Around the same time, Raft 6 is descending the conveyor towards the unloading area. By now, the water had gone down below the guide rails. As such, the raft just got stuck. Seeing this, the number two operator tried to get the attention of the number one operator, but she didn't succeed. Operator number one was loading guests onto an empty raft. Noticing the lowering water levels, he got them back off and got them to leave the ride area. A few seconds later, raft 5 is picked up by the conveyor. Raft 6 is still stuck on the guide rails at the end of the down part of the conveyor. Operator number one, seeing the conveyor still running, went to shut the ride down, although this is not 100% known as later the operator's statements would be a little bit contradictory. Anyway, Raph 5 was now at the crest of the conveyor about to make its way slowly down to the stranded Raph 6. At 5 minutes past two, Raph 6 bumps into RAF 5. The conveyor is still pushing the latter towards the former. After a few more seconds, the two rafts start to pivot upwards. The four of the conveyor continues to push five up against the stuck raft six. This caused raft five to be pushed vertically as raft six slammed back down horizontally. During this time, two people were thrown from raft 5. Two more were trapped in the raft and two managed to climb out to safety. The conveyor around this time slowly stops. A passenger aboard raft 6, seeing one of the two people ejected from raft 5 into the water course, jumped down to assist, initiating CPR. He was a true hero of the day and his name is Steven Anor. The rest of the people aboard raft 6 were evacuated and the two who had climbed out of the raft five were quickly moved to safety. The area was a wash with park first aiders and operators from other rides within just a few minutes of the alarm being put out. Emergency services were called and they were also pretty quick to attend the theme park. It was soon apparent that four people had lost their lives that day in the accident. The victims were Kate Goodchild, Luke Dorset, Ruseba, Aragi, and Cindy Lowe. The park was closed and not allowed to reopen by the Queensland police as the ride was being treated as a crime scene, at least immediately after the disaster. The park was announced to be reopened for a memorial service on the 28th, but this was quickly cancelled. Dream World CEO Craig Davidson said that the park was working with police to try and determine what went wrong. He also said, "We're deeply shocked and saddened by this. Our hearts and our thoughts go to the families involved and to their loved ones." As stated in syracuse.com, the disaster would spell the end of the ride where it would be over the following months be dismantled and fenced off from the public. The park would reopen to the public 6 weeks post disaster. as said in the Guardian, to modest crowds. The disaster would also cause theme parks across the world to reassess their own River Rapids rides, causing extra safety checks in response. But of course, now we need to look at the investigation about our River Rapids disaster and its aftermath after the disaster. The disaster would be dug into initially by the police, but would eventually be investigated by the coroner. And oh boy, the inquest would find a lot of concerning issues with the ride. The inquest would hear evidence of witness statements over roughly 18 days throughout 2018. Issues with the ride spotty pass were heard and a suspiciously similar incident in 2014 was uncovered where this time the ride operator was blamed and failed. It was discovered that operators were not made aware of the function of the emergency stop buttons installed in the loading and unloading areas where activation would have stopped the conveyor belt instantly. This showed a serious lack of training. In addition, it was found that staff were not given refresher training and were not adequately monitored in case they struggled with their workload. Post accident analysis found neither emergency stop plungers had been activated during the crash. Operator number one would later state that they found the ride very difficult to manage due to the multiple tasks needed to be undertaken to get the ride operational. This clearly shows why the conveyor ran so long after the pump's failure. No one working the ride at 2 p.m. knew how to stop it properly. But what we need to know is how did the ride fail in such a dangerous state? testing found that if just one of the pumps failed, the water level on the ride would drop below the guide rails at the loading station, and no method of level monitoring was provided for operators, not even level markers like the ones you get in swimming pools. Monitoring of the pumps was via a small amp meter and an illuminated light if tripped down. There was no automatic cutout or audible alarm if the water level became dangerously low. On top of this, the pumps and conveyor system were completely separate from one another, meaning that if one failed, the other could continue. This was a key factor in the accident as it enabled raft 5 to enter the conveyor after another raft was stranded in front of it. Ideally, if one part failed, then the whole ride should really shut down. In addition to this, there was stop gates at the beginning of the conveyor system which could detect for RA was stuck, which in theory would have stopped the system. However, these weren't installed at the more important end closest to the guide bars. The lack of automatic controls added to the already overloaded and undertrained operators. The inquest would summarize its findings in its 2020 published Republic report. It is clear that the expert evidence at the incident, the design and construction of the TRR at conveyor and unload area pose a significant risk to health and safety of patronons. The hazards associated with configuration of the ride identified by the experts and investigators were significant. The problem with the ride came down from the top as noted by coroner James McDougall. Such a culpable culture can exist only when leadership from the board down are careless in respect of safety. So Ardent Leisure, the owner of Dreamworld, would not have a fun time even before the release of the inquest results. CEO Deborah Thomas did not contact the victims directly, which was reported in the press, and she was slammed for this. On top of that, the disaster tanked the company's stock, leading to a $310 million Australian dollars knocked off of its market cap. Once the inquest was released, the company would get another hit with three criminal charges levied against it. These were from the health from the work health and safety act with each charge having a maximum fine of 1.2 million Australian dollars. On the 29th of July 2020, Ardent Leisure would plead guilty to the three charges. And on the 28th of September the same year, the company would be given the maximum fine of 3.6 million Australian dollars. And this leads us back to this picture of the empty scrub of land being made ready for a new ride. Interestingly, still Taipan, which would replace the River Rapids ride, would also require the demolition of the Gold Rush country's other opening ride, the Eureka Mountain ride, which at around the same time as the disaster had been condemned due to safety concerns, which is probably not that surprising. So, it's scale time. And this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Please let me know in the comments below. I always like to find out. This is a plain difficult production. All videos on the channel are creative common attribution shell like licensed. Plain difficult videos are produced by me John in a currently very windy and very wet corner of southern London UK. And all that's left to say is thank you very much for watching. And Mr. Music, can you do us a favor and play us out please? >> [music] >> Wow. Wow. I don't enjoy coach journeys. They give me really bad travel sickness. Something about bouncing around, old smelly seats, and the lack of proper toilet facilities really don't vibe with me. I would always prefer a train for a long-distance journey, but maybe my travel sickness is from another reason. Well, today's story makes me think there is. In 2002, an intercity bus in Bolivia ended up being the cause of multiple people being exposed to radiation. Yes, you heard me correctly, a radiation bus. But it's not for what you think. The bus wasn't nuclearpowered. It was running on good old diesel. It was more its cargo that was the concern. Stay tuned to find out more. Today we're going to have a short dive into the 2002 Coocha Bumba radiological incident. My name is John and of course you're watching Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. Check out the links below for early access as well as ad free videos and other bits and pieces as well at some levels getting your lovely name at the beginning of each of my videos. >> [music] >> background. So for this section of our video today, I'm going to talk about this organization, IB Norca. It is a nonprofit that was formed in Bolivia in 1992. It is responsible for setting national technical standards. It replaced a government organization that undertook similar roles. The organization also issues quality control certificates and operates accredited training for various industries. The company has around 40 employees, well at least in 2002 where our video is concerned. It has a few subsidiaries. One for today is rather important and that is the National Center for Welding. This part of the company offered a service for non-destructive weld testing. This was done with a single 192 Idium special form sealed source housed in a model 660 remote exposure container made by AEA technology QSA Inc. which is a US-based company. Due to there only being one unit available for the company and because testing is done both in the field around Bolivia and at their shielded radiology facility on Avenue Kamacho in La Paz, the equipment got a lot of usage and also a lot of transportation. Now because Ibnorca used radiography equipment, they fell under the regulations of the Bolivian Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology. And in 1997, new rules came into place where all companies needed to be licensed and properly regulated in line with international standards. Ibnora didn't apply for their license until 2001. We'll come back to this in a bit later on in the video. Anyh who, the single 192 Aridium device work like this. They had three main parts. the source container, a guide tube, and a 20 m long drive cable with a crank at the end. The container had from outside to inside an outer shell, then polyarene foam around a depleted uranium shield around a source tube which is in an S shape which had plugs at each end. Inside there was a source pellet and at one end of this there was a 15 cm cable attached to it and this is called the pigtail. When in use, the pigtail is attached to a 20 m long drive cable which is then in turn attached to a crank. The guide tube can be extended by adding pieces, the end of which is known as the snout. This is placed where the radiography exposure is meant to take place. So before an exposure and while still safely wound inside the container, the snout is placed at the weld that needs to be tested. A piece of photographic film is placed behind the weld. The crank is operated until the source grain is wound out to the end of the snout. A pre-calculated exposure time is weighted whilst gamma radiation is given off by the iridium 192 source which the gamma rays pass through the material being tested. As they pass through, some are absorbed more or less depending on the thickness of the material. The more that is absorbed means the area is thicker. Thus, if less is detected, then the material is thinner. And in the world this hints towards a void, crack or other defect. The photographic film captures this and after processing will show the darker spots and lighter spots. And darker means more rays have passed through the material and is thus thinner. I think I kind of explained that okay, but sorry if I didn't. So in a machine like this, making sure your radioactive source is safely housed is important, wouldn't you say? Yes, obviously. However, keep that also in mind for later on. Ibnorca is employed across the country to undertake non-destructive testing which requires transporting of their equipment. How would you say that this is done? Private car, van, plane, train. Well, how about on a public bus service? That is exactly the way the company would transport its equipment by booking it on the Bolivian equivalent of a Greyhound bus as cargo. This would later be cited as one of the reasons for the company's operations license refusal, which also included staff not having undertaken the appropriate training, outof-date dose meters, and improper paperwork supplied with their application. Also, the whole transport issue required them to have a vehicle with correct signage and proper controls for a radiological incident, things that most public transport buses don't generally have. But luckily for them, their 2001 kickback wouldn't affect their abilities to work as it was during a transitional period where the companies were given some time to improve the radiological accident. It is 9:30 on the Saturday 13th of April 2002 and a coach is pulling into the airport at Cooche Bambber. Aboard the cargo area is Ibnorca's type 660 remote exposure container housing its 0.67 terabbecules of 192 iridium source. It had been transported to coach Bambber from its last job in [music] Uro. In coach Bambber, the radiography machine is to be used to check the welds on some 2in gas pipelines [music] which are being installed near the airport. After its journey on the bus, the radiographer from Ibnorca checked the container with a doseometer. The readings made him confident that the source was correctly seated inside the source container. This would be the only dose rate reading that this person would take for their session today. At between 10 and 11:30 in the morning, the radiographer made 10 exposures of the pipeline. Now, as required by the company's rules, he should have checked his dosa meter to make sure the source was back in the container, but he didn't. At the end of the session, the radiographer started to pack up the equipment, but he found a little bit of an issue. He could not turn the mechanical interlock required to remove the drive cable and crank. This would be activated when the source was not fully retracted. However, the radiographer had wound the cable back enough, but the source and his pigtail had actually become disconnected and was stuck somewhere within the source tube. The radiographer didn't know this. If he used his dometer, he would have, but it would turn out that he didn't. Instead, he assumed the source was inside the container, and it was likely that some dirt had maybe got into the interlog. He continued to try and free the cable until around 12 p.m. after which he called the Ibnorca office in La Paz and explained that he thought what the issue was with the source container. So the office told the radiographer to pack up the device and ship it via coach back to La Paz. But he had a problem. It wouldn't all fit in the regular [music] transport carry case. Instead, he did this. What is going on here? Well, he placed the source container at an angle in the carry case and then placed the source tube, crank, and drive cable in a cardboard box, all held together with a good old bit of tape. This very safe and well-confined arrangement was then taken to the bus station for transport aboard the 1600 surface from Coach Bambber to Leaz. The journey would be roughly 8 hours and upon departure, it had 33 people aboard. By its destination, [music] it was at full capacity at 55 people. This was due to the bus making stops along the way. The radiography machine was sitting the whole time under the passenger's feet in the cargo hold. Arriving in La Paz at around midnight, the bus's passengers made off onto their connecting journeys. The cargo was left aboard the bus overnight for unloading in the morning. Two members of staff arrived at 10:00 a.m. to collect the package. But due to another staff member's name being on the address label, they would have to return at 2 p.m. with this member of staff to get the package released to them. Once claimed, the package was placed in the boot of a taxi for a 10-minute journey to the company's offices. Don't forget that each time the package was moved, no one fought to put a dose over it to check it. The free workers manhandled the radiography machine into the shielded room at the office. During the movement, no one was wearing any personal dose. It was only after the radiography machine was inside the shielded room that a doseometer was finally used to check the radiation of the machine. The doseter started going crazy. It was telling him that the source was not in a safe position. Not only that, but the rates were too high for the meter, not allowing the staff to figure out exactly where the source was, either in the container or in the guide tube. After checking it over, the staff came to the conclusion that the source must be in the guide tube. In order to figure this out, they used a cable hole in the confinement in the containment's wall to push the tip of the source guide tube through to see if the radiation reduced or not to find the exact location of the source. They basically made a radiation glory hole. After discovering where the source was, it was reattached using tongs and wound back into the container. The event was actually now over, but the Ibnorca director wasn't informed until the next day, who then also didn't inform the government body in charge of radiography, IB10, by writing until the 17th of April, 4 days after the initial issue at Coach Bambber. In the meantime, multiple people had been unknownly exposed and thus not properly treated. Aftermath, dose rates for the four staff members were made, estimating the maximum to be 0.72 gray, which would end up with recommendations of blood testing. And after a number of tests, luckily, nothing concerning showed up. But it wouldn't be until July that the bus passengers estimated doses would be attempted. Don't forget, they were sitting above the exposed source for up to 8 hours. This was put at the highest estimated dose at 2.5 gray, way higher than the staff members. Burning these people proved to be near impossible, even though extensive newspaper and TV advertisements were placed. For reference, a whole body dose of anything above 5 gray can be deadly. The event resulted in the IAEA being called in. They undertook experiments with a similar bus to work out the potential doses the bus passengers would have received. And the results were far more reassuring with a maximum high of 1.2 [music] gray at the feet of the seats over the cargo area. And although higher than recommended for the public, a dose as much as this is fairly low in the grand scheme of things. It would turn out that Ibnorca was rather lucky. The company would be hit with some legal issues and this included, as stated by the IAEA, a maximum fine of 10 minimum standard monthly salaries. This was approximately $500. Seizure and decommissioning of the radiography source and container. The temporary suspension of all radiography work by Ibnorca. The obligation to identify and locate people involved in the accident. And finally, the reexport of the radioactive source to the supplier. Not the worst penalty, I know, especially when the outcome could have been on Goyania levels. if the source had been higher in levels of radiation or if the source was a different one, for example, Cobalt 60, which does have a much longer halflife. Regardless, it was a very close call. So, that's my video on the coach Bambber disaster. It's going to be a one on the scale, and this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a plenty production. All videos on the channel are creative commas attribution share light licensed playing difficult videos produced by me John the currently cold and miserable corner of southern London UK and all that's left to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. music. Can you play us out, please? [music] >> 1 2 3 4 5 [music] 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 [music] 13 14 15 16 [music] It is the 28th of June 1983 and a truck trailer is hanging rather precariously in the air. Its bizarre location was caused by a regular in this channel. A bridge disaster. In the early hours of the morning, a section of the bridge over Ninus River just randomly fell off. But the truck trailer was just the tip of the iceberg of destruction as another truck and two cars had also smashed into the water below. But what was the cause? Well, that's what we will find out in this short dive, excuse the pun, into the Mayanus River Bridge disaster. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. Their financial support really helps keep the lights on. In exchange, I offer adree early access to all of my videos. And at some tiers, you even get your lovely name right here at the start of my videos. [music] The bridge. Our story starts in the 1950s with the construction of a new interstate road. the I95. This is the highway along the east coast of the United States. Like all long road projects, rather a large amount of infrastructure was required to facilitate the smooth flow of traffic. One such piece was across the Mayanis River in the state of Connecticut. The bridge to span the crossing was designed in 1955 to standards set out in 1953 for highway bridge design. It was completed in 1958 just in time for the I95's opening. The bridge was a deck bridge design where the road deck sits above the superructure. It was over 2,600 ft long and was 70 ft above the river. The bridge had two abutments and 23 peers which holds up 24 bridge spans of which there were 19 approach spans, two anchor, two suspended spans and one main span. The majority of the approach spans were on the west and I'll miss them out for this diagram for brevity and also the reference diagram I was using from the NTSB report doesn't show them as well. So the peers were reinforced concrete in which the spans were mounted. Now each roadway spans were constructed of two parallel steel girders. I should say that the bridge was kind of technically two parallel bridges as both roadways are independent of one another. Anyh who, these two parallel steel girders have floor beams attaching them together with stringer beams running into the floor beams. The suspended spans which covered two sections of the bridge were split into four individual spans due to the whole parallel bridge shenanigans. They're attached to the bridge on one end by cantal lever section part of the anchor spans and at the other end attached to a cantal lever section attached to the main span. The suspended spans are attached to their respective cantaliever sections via a pin and hanger arrangement. The pins were 7 in long with a diameter of 7 in as well. They are inserted into the girders of the suspended spans and their respective anchor spans and can lever sections. Covering over this is the inside and outside hangers which help carry the load. The caps are held in place by a bolt that is inserted into the pin and secured with a nut and washer. The sections had an expansion joint with interlocking fingers on the roadway. Below this was a copper drainage channel. This is a very oversimplified explanation, but like all intricate steel work, especially like this, it can be susceptible to corrosion if not properly protected and maintained. Part of this protection is with proper drainage, and the bridge had this in that there were gratings along the roadside curbs. This led water down towards down spurts, which allowed the water to be safely drained off into the river. Now these suspended spans are skewed at an angle when looking down straight at them. So the bridge follows the Mayanus River channel below. Now the bridge post opening saw good use as it carried the traffic along the I95. Well until it stopped doing that. But disaster. It is the early hours of the 28th of June 1983 and traffic across the Manis bridge is understandably light. Heading eastbound is two articulated lorries and a car. One of the lorries are on the curbside lane and the other is in the middle lane and the car is in the median lane. Suddenly at 1:30 in the morning, the highway lighting went black as darkness hit. A following car saw the tail lights of one of the trucks disappear. The next truck started jacknifing, followed by the tractor unit plunging over the edge. >> [music] >> The trailer eventually smashing into the ground was left sitting rear end up. The three vehicles, the car and two trucks had plunged down the some 70 ft drop [music] below. The following car managed to stop. The two occupants escaped, seeing the now empty space of the bridge. They tried to warn other road users approaching on the eastbound roadway. Their efforts unfortunately were in vain as another car launched off into the void. A some 100 ft span had magically appeared and dropped into the river on the eastmost suspended section of the bridge. Quickly, emergency services were called by locals hearing the commotion from nearby Greenwich. And no, not that Greenwich. The Marine Police and the United States Coast Guard were notified and attended Wateride while Greenwich police blocked off the I95 at the bridge, creating a rather long and arduous diversion for road users. The crash vehicles were examined by emergency services and three bodies would be removed. This was the driver of the first truck, a passenger in the first car, and the driver of the second car. Amazingly, the drivers of the first car and second truck survived, albeit with very severe injuries. The bridge would remain closed until September 1983, pushing some 90,000 daily road users into local roads. A temporary fix was made via a truss section installed to the bridge to bridge the gap. Of course, after the remaining structure was examined, and we'll come to that in a little bit. Eventually, the bridge was rebuilt almost entirely. The peers, although fully refurbished, are pretty much the only thing that remains. Everything else is new. Well, at least new in the late 1980s and early 1990s when it was rebuilt. The bridge was given a new name, the Michael L. Morano Bridge after the local senator. But of course, what we really want to know is what was the cause of the accident? The investigation. So, as a US transport-based disaster, it would require a long-term good friend of the channel, the NTSB. Post accident, the bridge was inspected and it was discovered that two of the three remaining suspended spans each had some form of misalignment. In some places, over a half of inch of movement had occurred. The fail portion of the bridge had evidence of its beginnings in the southeast portion and its pin and hanger assembly. Inspection on the eastbound span on the other end of the bridge revealed a considerable amount of corrosion on the outer pin and hanger assembly. And after being relieved of its load and disassembled, large amounts of black rusty water had flowed out. This seemingly was not visible with the assembly in place, albeit just for a few brown surface rust spots. It would seem likely that the failed eastbound span on the eastern side would have experienced a similar effect. Interestingly, the northern side of the bridge didn't experience the same level of corrosion. So why then? Inspectors had checked the bridge's draining system, and guess what? The curb on the southern side was covered with debris with even weeds emerging sprouting through. It would turn out that the bridge's draining channels had 10 years before being covered over with steel plates for road resurfacing. But after the work was complete, these plates weren't removed, thus severely reducing the ability for water to be shed away from the vulnerable pin and hanger joints. The NTSB set out their theory of the bridges failure, beginning in the inside hangar. Over the years, it had become displaced and separated from the lower pin. This allowed corrosion to form within the assembly, now only resting on one pin, it was only a matter of time before failure. Once the inside hanger had failed, the southeast corner was now solely supported from the outside hanger. Soon after, the outside hanger two slipped off the upper pin. The span was now only supported on three sides. Deflection of the suspended span caused it to twist. Next, the southwest corner failed, followed by the northwest, then complete collapse. Interestingly, the corrosion was the cause of the inner hanger failure. But for not how you might think, it was from the pressure caused by the formation of rust between 4,000 and 7,000 PSI. This was the cause of the bending action that broke the vital hanger. This corrosion was not picked up during inspections of the bridge, which then when coupled with improper drainage, well, we can see the results. It's quite crazy to think. The NTSB would summarize this in their report. The [snorts] National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the collapse of the Manus Bridge span was undetected lateral displacement of the hangers of the pin and hanger assembly in the southeast core of the span by corrosion induced forces due to deficiencies in the state of Connecticut's bridge safety inspection and bridge maintenance program. Now cross estate bridges would be modified to remove this type of pin and hanger assembly system as well as more stringent inspections, gutter cleaning and general maintenance. The state would be hit in 1986 with a settlement for the bridg's victims as stated in the associated press. The state has reached an out of court settlements worth almost $6.3 million with four of the six victims of the 1983 collapse of the Manis River Bridge on the Connecticut turnpipe which is hardly a surprise as it was the state's fault. Now it's scale time. I think it's going to be a free. Do you agree? And this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. This is a plentiful production. All videos on the channel are created commons attribution share like licensed pl videos produced by me John in the currently cold and not so sunny corner of southern London UK. And all that's left to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. music. Play us out, please. >> [music] >> It is an unassuming morning in March 1968 along the Skull Valley in Utah. The area is used for grazing of livestock. As the sun rises and sunlight is cast across the ground, a horrific sight is revealed. Hundreds of bodies are strewn across the land. The worst nightmare of any farmer has happened. That is the mass loss of their animals. You see, the bodies are of sheep, hundreds, with many still in the process of dying. A local sheriff is called and attends the scene. He would say, "Sheep laying all over, all of them down, patches of white as far as you could see. The cause of what is unfolding is somewhat of a mystery. After all, the random mass dying of ruminants isn't a common occurrence. Was it food poisoning, disease, or maybe something else?" Well, our story today is mainly known as the Dougway sheep incident and not so much the Skull Valley sheepkill incident for a reason. That is because nearby there is a weapons testing facility called the Dougway proving ground. It is a chemical weapons facility and it would seem a likely source of a mass mystery exploration of animals. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos, as well as add free access to the videos, you can from £1 per month. And as always, the links will be in the pinned comment below. Dougway Proving Ground. Like many stories on this channel, our story begins with the little known multiple border dispute, 70 to 80 million deathinducing event called World War II. So after Pearl Harbor, the United States sought to ramp up its military capacity. It looked to expand across many different weapons platforms and disciplines and one at least for today's subject was that of chemical and biological weapons. To look at such weapons, a proving ground was needed. Quickly a site was selected and opened in Utah, some 85 mi southwest of Salt Lake City. The area was picked for its remoteness in comparison to the Army's site in Maryland. Work was quickly set about after opening as stated on the military1source.mmill website. On February 12th, 1942, Dougway proving ground was established and testing was underway by that summer. Initial testing work undertaken on site included incendiary bombs, flamethrowers, chemical weapons, and modified chemical agents sprayed from aircraft. Mockdowns were built for testing of incendiary bombing methodology. You see, testing is vital as it helps predict distribution of agents in both an attack and a defensive role where protection of personnel is vitally important. After World War II, the site was slowly deactivated. However, only just a few years later, it would be reopened when the Korean War kicked off, sparking the site back into full-time operation. Postwar, the site would continue to run as a permanent installation and expand. In 1958, the US Army Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Weapons School moved to Dougway. Various chemicals would be tested on the site with hundreds of open air releases and even nuclear fallout releases. But for today, we're only going to talk about one, and that is of VX. VX, short for the rather ominous name of venomous agent X, is a toxic synthetic chemical compound, a nerve agent. Nerve agents disrupt the ways nerves transfer messages to the organs within your body. And this is very scary stuff. Now, the beginnings of VX go back to the early 1950s with its discovery during pesticides research at Imperial Chemical Industries right here in the UK. This is how VX works when it's ingested into your body. So, when you want to say get off the sofa, you need to move some muscles. This requires messages to be sent from your brain along your nervous system to your muscle cell. To transfer these messages from one neuron to another neuron, gland or muscle cell, chemicals called neurotransmitters are used to transfer messages over the gap between the cells at places called synaptic junctions. One such neurotransmitter is the organic compound acetal colony. This is used in the autonomic nervous system responsible for amongst other things regulating heart rate and blood pressure. After fulfilling its function for transmitting the message at the synaptic junction, the acetyl colony must be cleared. This is done by enzymes which break it down within the sinapse. The enzyme acetyl colonsterase is released and immediately breaks down the acetyl colony which allows the muscle or organ to relax. This is how VX causes you damage. It inhibits the creation of the enzyme. You see in the you getting up from the sofa scenario, your muscles have contracted. If the acetylonase isn't released, your muscle will remain tense. But VX causes this across any part of the body that needs a settled colonsterase such as your breathing or heartbeat. VX can enter your body via inhalation or personally what I find more terrifying absorption through your skin. It can be deployed in its oily substance form or as droplets when dispensed from a sprayer. Being one of the most deadly nerve agents, the US military wanted to learn about its effectiveness and as such it tested VX in various settings and delivery methods. One such was via this thing, the TMU 28-B A RAM airspray tank. It was made of steel and would disseminate vaporized VX from the underside of a F4 Phantom. When over the target area, explosive charges are fired and the chemical agent is sprayed out, covering everything below. However, after beginning dispersement, there was no way to stop it until the tanks were completely empty. Much like a fart in the wind, its dispersion is very much reliant on the weather, as it can blow your deadly nerve agent off target. Which leads us on to the event. I've never seen such a sight in my life. It is the morning of the 14th of March, 1968, and farmers at the Hatch Ranch in Skull Valley have discovered some of their flock around White Rock on the eastern slope of the Cedar Mountains in various states of distress. They were confused, refusing to walk, having trouble breathing. Some were experiencing fits and others had died. In other areas, sheep were showing the same strange behaviors. As the day wore on, as the snow blew in, more and more sheep were succumbing to this bizarre sickness. Some were seen to show symptoms after licking the snow or eating the frozen grass below. Vets were called in, and it was something that they hadn't seen in sheep before. Such was the concern that the University of Utah's ecological and epidemiological department was called in to investigate. Quickly, reports of the incident were coming out in both local and national newspapers. The epidemic was seen in flocks across the Skull Valley. Over the following days, more and more sheep would be discovered dead. Around one week after the first discovery, an estimated nearly 2,000 had died. The symptoms were found to be with some kind of damage to the animals nervous system. Initially, it was thought that fertilizer of some sort had been ingested by the sheep, but testing found no traces. The sheep's injuries hinted at a nerve agent. Funny that, especially in a strange coincidence that not too far away, there was a chemical testing site. The evidence was pointing that maybe Dougway a few miles away might have had something to do with the random deaths of thousands of sheep. Around 8 days after the discovery of the dead sheep, Senator for Utah, Frank E. Moss, revealed that there had been nerve agent testing in the days leading up to the incident. The report he had received was released by the senator's office. It isn't 100% known if it was marked as official use or not. The senator's team claimed it wasn't and the army claimed it was. Regardless, the army had to admit that on the 13th of March 1968, free VX weapons tests had been undertaken at Dougway. It would turn out that the free weapons tests were of a VX loaded shell, an open pit burn of VX, and a release from an F4 Phantom. The first two being localized tests. It seemed less likely to be the culprit. However, the F4 Phantom Air test would turn out to be the biggest suspect. It happened some 27 miles to the southwest of the closest dead sheep. The Army kept on denying any link. However, it would be leaked that there was a small issue with the aerial release test. The test release required the aircraft to dispense VX over a target area at an altitude of roughly 150 ft, after which the plane would climb and jettison its empty tanks. However, a fault in the nozzle of the MU28B A RAM airspray tank meant that it continued to dispense VX after the F4 Phantom had completed its run and entered its climb before its jettison. This released VX at a much higher altitude than planned, allowing it to be carried by the wind beyond the drop zone, which on the day of the test was blowing from the southwest at speeds of 35 mph right into the direction of the nearest affected sheet. Later on on the 13th, rain showers hit the Skull Valley. This would have helped in washing the VX into the ground. The evidence was mounting up, although the army would continue to refuse to admit it was the cause of the release. Testing of soil in the Skull Valley found traces of the X. Strangely, there were other animals intermingled amongst the sheep, but none showed symptoms of exposure. I'll come back to this in a little bit. After the initial incident, sheep would show signs of exposure until June 1968. By the end of the event, nearly 7,000 sheep had died or have been put down due to injury aftermath. Although the evidence was pretty well stacked up that VX was the killer and that it had come from Douggeway, the US Army bitterly held on to the assertion that it was not responsible. Dougway had no off-site monitoring, meaning it was impossible for them to tell if there wasn't off-site release. Likely, if there were no sheep in the area, the release might have gone unnoticed. Human effects were minimal with some farmers experiencing mild nausea and other VX- related symptoms, as well as a few veterinarians who had done the autopsies on the affected animals. But how was it that the sheep were more affected? Well, at the time, VX hadn't really been tested on sheep. Thus, its effects were unknown beyond the usual effects on mammals. The event actually ended up showing sheep are much more sensitive to lower concentrations than say horses, dogs, or humans. Testing on other animals found decreased cholesterays in blood tests, which is an indication of nerve gas exposure. Also, as stated in nerve gas, Dougway accident linked to Utah sheepkill by Philip M. Bothy, the first sheep that died may have been killed by the nerve agent, but those that died later succumbed to such secondary causes such as starvation. In a report published by the National Communicable Disease Center in Atlanta, more evidence was found pointing towards the army during their water and foliage testing, stating the tests prove beyond a doubt that the responses are in fact identical and can be attributed to the same chemical. Eventually, US Army would kind of confess, even paying out compensation to farmers in the area. In total, $376,000 for 6,249 sheep were claimed for about twice the market value. This was pushed for by Congress and Utah's governor, although throughout the army would still claim that they were not responsible. The event went deeper with the people of Utah that than a mini sheep genocide as it solidified anti-US army and wider federal government sentiments in the aftermath as no one really took responsibility and even after evidence proved otherwise for disaster claimed it still wasn't them. As stated in the Salt Lake Tribune in 1998, the Dougway sheep incident is loaded with symbolic value in Utah. It is brought up regularly at public hearings as one of the two reasons uts distrust the army and to a lesser degree all other federal agencies. The other frequently cited cause of distrust is federal lies about the safety of open air nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada test site in the 1950s and 1960s that sent clouds of radioactive fallout drifting into Utah. The event created a political wave that would in 1969 result in the discontinuation of open air chemical weapons testing eventually resulting in the reaffirmed no firstuse policy on chemical weapons by Richard Nixon as well as renouncing the use of biological weapons. The period put chemical weapons under scrutiny with the sheepkill, Asian orange controversy, and the 1969 Okinawa incident all being in the news around the same time. But we do have to talk about alternative theories. There is some evidence that maybe VX wasn't the culprit. Prepa days in the US was a bit of a wild west for people finding chemical solutions to problems. This included illegal fertilizers and pesticides. A theory at the time was that farmers had hired two crop dusters with a plan to spray pesticides for killing weevils, which can also be an organo phosphate over where alalfa was grown. This is a crop that is used for grazing animals to eat. The theory goes that farmers were spraying too close to the sheep which in turn killed them and wanting to recoup the cost of the animals moved the carcasses to land close to Dougway to try and blame the army. This is not such a believable theory personally. However, the other theory is a bit more interesting is that of espionage. If you look at the result of the event which was a reduced chemical and biological weapons program, you can look at who benefited from it. Quib Bono is always a good question to ask, but who else but the Soviets? As noted in A mighty wind, nerve gas, 6,000 dead sheep, and Soviet trickery by Dr. Steven J. The party that benefited the most was, of course, the Soviet Union, which obtained a monopoly on significant development on biological weapons. You see, cutting down the US weapons program would always be a good thing, at least in the USSR's eyes. And interestingly, the reason why it was pushed for by the government to blame the US Army was maybe they didn't want to admit that Soviet agents were releasing nerve agents on US soil. Ultimately, we will never know the cause, but it is very interesting to ponder. Dougway Proving Gound is still in operation today and it is still not without its controversial events. So, it's scale time. It's going to be a one, but on the sheep scale, it's got to be a 9 or a 10. And this is what I've got for my disaster root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a plain difficult production. All videos on the channel are creative commas attribution share like licensed. Plenty difficult videos are produced by me, John, in the currently pretty cold and miserable corner of southern London, UK. And all I have to say is thank you very much for watching. And Mr. Music, can you play us out, please? [music] >> [music] [music] >> It is December 1995 and the EPA have just published a record of decision on a super fun site that has been on the radar since the late 1980s. The site, rather interestingly, isn't an illegal dump like the Valley of the Drums or a town built on questionable foundations like the Love Canal, but it is of a governmentowned site in its own right. It is the burial grounds of two self-deconstructed nuclear reactors. One was unintentional. This was the SL1. And the other was rather intentional, which was called the Borax. You see, there is a lot of remedial work ahead as both reactors have slowly been poisoning the ground around them. But today's video isn't a super fun site video. It's a video about a nuclear reactor. And as I've covered the SL1 way back in 2018, side note, it bugs me that I made a few mistakes in that video. But of course, today's subject is going to be on the reactor called the borax. The self not being together gave us this amazing picture. Yes, that is a reactor explosion. Well, without further delay, let's get cracking into the story behind the borax reactor tests. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. Today's video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access to channels to the channel's videos, then you can from £1 per month. And as always, links will be in the top comment below. An experimental reactor design. The early 1950s was an interesting time for reactor development in the USA. Various different designs were explored as scientists probed reactor behavior. Our story for the borax begins with an interesting event. An operator error induced excursion at a test reactor in the argon laboratory in Illinois. The heat generated boiled off the moderating water. And although splashing for operators with some spicy reactor soup, nothing really dramatic occurred. This sparked the idea that maybe a reactor moderator could be kept in a stable boiling mode. An experiment was put forward and it was green lit, but not to be run at the Arone National Laboratory. Instead, a site a bit more isolated was put forward as it was considered to be a little bit of a risky experiment. But why bother with a boiling water reactor? Well, potentially a boiling water reactor offered some advantages over say a pressurized water reactor. One of the main benefits is not needing as strong of a reactor vessel as the pressure of boiling water is below that of a pressurized water reactor. Another advantage, at least in theory at the time, is that this type of reactor is self-regulating. Okay, let's quickly talk about this. You see, in order to sustain a chain reaction within a reactor, you kind of need a moderator. And in a boiling water reactor, this is like water. If you begin to remove a reactor's control rods, the reactivity increases. This generates heat so much so that it begins to boil off the moderator. As it turns to steam and loses its characteristics as a moderator, which then reduces its neutron slowing abilities, it in turn reduces the reactivity and thus heat. In turn, the steam cools down and turns back into water, increasing its moderating characteristics. With greater moderator density, the activity then increases. Basically, the reactor will self-regulate through the boiling and cooling of the water to a point of stability. This makes the concept very safe and importantly very predictable, which is ideal for power generation. This is the rough concept. I hope I explained it right. And it was the rough idea that in 1952 the Arone Laboratory wanted to test out. The borax's name came not from boronic acid but instead from boiling reactor experimental. It was a fairly basic design emitting any power generation capability and instead of condensing the coolant moderator for reuse it would just evaporate to atmosphere. Coolant was also circulated naturally through free convection. The reactor was constructed in sections at Arone and shipped in the spring of 1953 to be put together like a puzzle at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho. Not far from the EBR testing area. The reactor vessel was placed in an Earth mound inside a shield tank. Above this was the control rod drive carriage which had the mechanism for inserting and retracting control rods of which there were five. This was the main means of reactivity management for the borax reactor. The reactor held roughly 100 L of demineralized water. The fuel assemblies were enriched uranium placed in thin concave aluminium plates. The plates had gaps between them to allow the coolant to flow between. Operators from both Arone and the EBR would staff the new reactor which was operated from a mobile trailer located around a half a mile from the test site. The experiment begins. The reactor went into operation and was planned to be run during the summer months of 1953. After initial criticality, the first tests were run were rather boring in sense that they were similar to any new reactor. A few short power tests were undertaken. These were to push the reactor coolant close to boiling point. Due to the potential for release of reactivity, staff were evacuated from the area during the runs. Next came a series of transient tests to probe the limits of stable operation. This was achieved by exposing the reactor to power surges. The tests were seen in this rather spectacular video, ejecting spicy water out of the open reactor tank, reaching an estimated power level of 70 megawatt in just a few milliseconds. The reactor test went rather well, helping to prove the concept of the boiling water design. However, the actual reactor test unit had quite a few issues. Due to its prototype nature, wells were rather weak, allowing water to leak out. Eventually, the test had to end towards the end of the summer as the reactivity between the increased power test runs resulted in personnel difficulties in that manipulation of fuel resulted in operators getting very close to their daily exposure limits. The tests would be shut down over the winter during which time the Borax one reactor would be rebuilt with improvements to its control gear in the mobile control room and to its rod assemblies. By the summer of 1954, the reactivity of the reactor had decayed sufficiently that fuel elements could again be manipulated manually. The new and improved borax was given the number two designation. By this point, borax 3 was also in the works with an improved reactor vessel that could take higher pressures. So, after some more experiments with the two, the scientists thought about maybe something for the ls, a good old reactor bang. The testing throughout the summer worked on runaway situations to establish the upper limits of stable boiling operation. But finally, the Borax 2 would reach the end of its life of being non-grenaded. The destruction. So in order to go boom, the Borax 2 needed some modifications. This was mainly with a strong spring that when the control rod being held in place by an electromagnetic which was switched off would shoot the control rod out of the core causing the reactor to go prompt critical almost instantly. The destruction test was set for early morning in March leading up to a 7 a.m. start. A short low power transient test run was undertaken to verify that the reactor equipment was working. after which operators conducted an inspection of all the control rods. During this time, a fuel assembly was found to be deformed and had to be replaced. The test was reliant on wind direction as the release material post explosion could travel towards any waiting onlookers. In order to decide whether to go or not, smoke bombs were set off to indicate the wind direction. Operators made the final checks and high-speed and steel cameras were put into action. The reactor was brought up to a steady state low power level, ready to begin the destruction. The time was around 8:00 a.m. The control rod electromagnet was switched off, shooting the control rod out of the reactor via the strong spring and the power of good old gravity. Quickly, the reactor power spiked. An explosion followed, lifting the entire shield tank out of the core and shooting it into pieces over an acre of the surrounding area. The control rod assembly shot into the air, being flung back to earth by the cabling that was used to electronically control it. Steam water and fuel debris scattered out. Pieces of molten fuel rain down in the surrounding area. A cloud of radioactive steam and vapor moved southwards from the reactor site. Only the reactor vessel's bottom plate remained in the pit. The rest had been recited in a debris field amongst amongst the desert sand. As soon as it was deemed safe, roughly by the end of the day, staff in protective clothing went in to inspect the damage and take photos of the remaining mang mangled machinery. The test had been a success. A very entertaining and messy success at that, but like all fun things, the boring part of cleaning it all up had to be undertaken. The aftermath. Debris from the reactor was examined and documented. Any non-fuel debris was placed within the old dugout that was used for the reactor vessel. Cleanup crews sent any found uranium fuel off for reprocessing, but not every piece was recovered. Thus, fuel ended up being buried with the rest of the debris. Due to the reactivity of the debris field, around 84,000 square ft area was covered with gravel 6 in deep. And although initially fought safe and unable to grow any foliage, plants would eventually sprout out from the ground a few years later. Over the following years, the site would be monitored for radiation, and surveys in 1978 and 1980 showed reactivity to be three times above background levels. The site and surrounding area was fenced off, but a more extensive solution to the contamination in the area had to be sorted out. Since 1987, the site was on the EPA's radar, and in 1995, a record of decision for the designated super fund site was published. The waste from the borax reactor would be contained along with the contaminated soil nearby under an engineered barrier constructed primarily of native materials. The capp site is still fenced off today and it is hoped to be effective for at least another 280 years. Now the borax test would continue with borax 3 which added power generation. It supplied nearby Arco Idaho with electricity making it the first town to be powered completely by nuclear power. The borax test would end in the 1960s after getting to its fifth revision. But the borax destruction test wasn't the only test of its type. There was also an aptly named spurt reactor and the Snapran. the latter of the two I've covered in an old and dusty plainly difficult video. So today the scale will be a one and this is what I've got for my rather empty root cause analysis card as well. The destruction and contamination was kind of all part of the plan. This is a plentiful production. All videos on the channel are created with common attribution share like licensed playful videos produced by me John in the currently actually snowing corner of southern London UK. And all I have to say is thank you very much for watching. And Mr. Music, can you do me a favor and play us out please? [music] Hey, [music] hey, hey. [music] >> [music] [music] >> Take a look at this photograph. It's a rather unassuming vintage picture of a man in his aircraft. However, when we look closer at the background, you can see something a little more concerning. The man in the photo is Tony Taylor, a George Cross awardee. And the cloud in the background is the eruption of Mount Lamington in Papa New Guinea. Taylor would gain his George Cross from his almost daily flights over the still erupting volcano in which the data he collected would help [music] in the aid efforts. What is strange is that up until its eruption, no one even knew that Mount Lamington was an active volcano. The eruption would be so much of a surprise that between 2 and 4,000 lives would be taken in just a few moments. Today, we're covering the tragic 1951 Mount Lamington eruption. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. Today's video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos, then you can from £1 per month. As always, the links will be in the pinned comment below. The mountain. This is Mount Lamington. It is a 1680 m high mountain in the Oro province of Papa Newu Guinea. At the time of our story, the region is under the control of the Australian government. It is named after Charles Wallace Alexander Napia Cockrane Valley, second baron of Lamington. And that name just rolls off the tongue. The mountain is within the hydrographers's range. The area is scattered with craters created during historical eruptions in the pleaene. This is a long long time ago. More recently, Papa Newu Guinea had had some volcanic eruptions near Ishbai in Mount Victory, which erupt in the 1930s and Wyola in the 1940s. But crucially, at least for our story today, Mount Lamington hadn't had an eruption, at least witnessed by locals or being told in folk stories about the mountain being explosive. That meant that villages were scattered all around the base of the mountain and for the most part were living rather happily. The top of Mount Lamington was much like a jungle in the late 1940s, not really giving any indication of any volcanic activity. The local orian people were reliant on the still colonial power from Australia and by extension the United Kingdom for wider decision-making in regards to public health and safety. The area hadn't had much in the way of geographical surveys. Hence, the small hints at a volcanic nature of Mount Lamington were not widely known. 74 years ago. So, whilst I'm writing the script in January 2025, I'm describing events that happened almost to the day 74 years ago. January 1951 started off like any other around Mount Lamington. It was during the school holidays and children who boarded at the Sangra Mission were back at home. This time of year, the mountains peak can be obscured by cloud cover. But as the first week went into the second week of January, the mountain started to become uneasy. Small tremors were felt, but the first major sign came in on the 15th of January. A landslide had caused visual brown streaks on the mountain where trees had become loose from the ground and had toppled over. White smoke could be seen emanating from the lower areas of the mound. As Tuesday the 16th rolled in, more landslides could be seen on the inner peaks [music] and increasing tremors were felt. On Wednesday, volcanic emissions increased yet again with smoke blowing from the top of the mountain. And on top of that, the earthquakes that were being felt were becoming more frequent and more violent. Winds cleared the fog and clouds from the top of the mountain and some inhabitants [music] nearby would get a chance to see what was unfolding for the first time. On Thursday, more people were aware of the volcanic eruption as even greater emissions were emitting from the top of Mount Lamington. Some of the missionaries in the area started preparing for a potential humanitarian crisis, but little else was done in terms of disaster management. The district commissioner was completely unprepared for this type of disaster. He mowled over just evacuating the Europeans or even evacuating the thousands that were living around the mountain. However, his indecision meant that no one really was told to leave. But to be fair, he wasn't an expert on volcanic eruptions. A small eruption that took place on Thursday prompted the district commissioner to send a radiogram back to his superiors stating continuous earth tremors commencing evening 16th average 70 per day. Lamington commenced erupting 11:00 this morning 18th six spiral vertical landslides plentiful in area also stream flowing down street ravine sand colored difficult determine earth water or lava vast smoke billowing whole northern mountain side 2 p.m. Estimated distance from IATE 8 mi. Consider no need alarm, but you may care. Investigate by aircraft. We'll keep you informed. Suggest radio conversation 400 p.m. today. The unfolding unease of the mountain garnered some fascinating photos of which some would make it into the press the next day. One of which was published in the South Pacific Post alongside a statement informing of no deaths and no immediate danger. On Friday morning, the plume of smoke coming from Mount Lamington, although constant, had seemed to have lost some of its violent intensity. Due to clouds dissipating around the summit, the volcano smoke plume could now be seen for the first time in Wisetta and Koka. But by the afternoon, volcanic activity was increasing and becoming visible at greater distances. Debris was now falling on the area of Isizita, collapsing houses causing locals to flee. Friday evening was still in comparison to some of the other days with some areas gradually being enveloped by the sulfuric smell. Saturday morning was much of the same with the plume of smoke gaining height. Wind blew it towards the south reaching an altitude of approximately 30,000 ft. Radio calls between the district commissioner and Port Morrisby around 3 p.m. on the Saturday were severely hampered by static interference. A call for the next morning was agreed to discuss the volcano further. By the late evening, the earthquakes had subsided as other areas reported blue flashes from red glowing material from the summit. But the next day would surpass the whole week. The big eruption. It is 10:35 in the morning on the 21st of January, 1951. And this Sunday, Aquantus Airrays DC3 is flying rather close to Mount Lamington on a bird of paradise flight from Port Morrisby to Rebel via the Cakakota Gap. It is at a height of just under 3,000 m. At 10:40, Mount Lamington shot out an enormous and rapidly expanding cloud from the summit. To avoid being enveloped by it, the DC3 had to dive to escape the cloud. This was the moment that Lamington was properly erupting. At the base of the cloud, pyrolastic debris shot out along the ground. A second Quantis Airways plane. A DH84 Dragon was coming into land at an air strip near Pop Pondetta. Almost as it touched down, a rapidly expanding surge approached from the south. Those aboard the aircraft saw what looked like the entire side of the mountain explode. The dragon hit full throttle just missing the cloud. During this, the government station at Hagataroo was enveloped in the cloud. The entire town would be wiped off the map. A change in wind had pushed the pyrolastic debris towards the north from Mount Lamington's peak. The surge stopped around 3 km from the Sangra plantation, but all in between there and the eruption crater, including the predominantly Oricavian inhabited settlement of Sangra, would be gone. Few would survive amongst the inviscerated jungle. Any survivors outside the initial surge fled north to Pondetta. This was not the best place to have a refuge area. There was no medical facilities and virtually no radio equipment. As more poured into the settlement, ash continued to fall. At around 900 p.m., another eruption came from M Lamington on its southern side. The injured at Poppetta were gradually evacuated further away from the mountain closer towards the shoreline throughout the evening. The rescue efforts and aftermath. The word of the total eruption of Mount Lamington filtered its way to the administration in Port Moresby on the morning of Monday the 22nd of January. The first of the relief efforts began arriving at Poppetta, both via the sea at Cape Kitton and via the settlements airirstrip from Quantis aircraft. Throughout the day, more and more walking wounded arrived at Poppetta. Much of the more severely injured were Oricavian people. Some of the dead were beginning to be recovered for burial. The next day, another refugee area was set up in Wori, which is alongside the Cakakota track, which linked Poppandetta to Port Moresby. The area had only 10 years before been the site of a deadly campaign between Australian soldiers and the Japanese during World War II. On Tuesday, the burial of the dead would begin. Many showed signs of asphixxia and firmly induced muscle contractions, giving a morbid fetal or sitting position to the corpses. However, due to the swiftness of the burials, an exact death toll was never fully agreed upon. Estimates range from between 2,000 and 4,000 people with an official death toll of 2,942. An estimated 5,000 were left homeless in addition and the heavy ash fall would cause financial devastation to the region with plantation crops being completely ruined. Volcanologist Tony Taylor would post eruption fly numerous observation sorties over Lamington noting the ongoing volcanic activity. His work would greatly influence the search and rescue efforts leading to many lives saved. The humanitarian work would keep on being set back when flooded in early February. This was due to the nearby Kamoosei River carrying debris from Mount Lamington causing it to burst its banks. A new relief area was set up in Limo and by May it had processed and relocated most of the refugees in the area. Many have been relocated to newly built settlements along the Cakakota trail. Now reporting in the news focused like a laser on the white European losses and missing which numbered in the mid30s just 1% of the total losses. The administration came under flack for its complete lack of preparedness and although not known to be a volcano Mount Lamington had been telling everyone it was going to go boom for the best part of a week. District Commissioner Ceil Cowi, who would die during the eruption, did request a volcanologist on Thursday. Instead, Judge Phillips, the acting administrator, flew in with his wife, but a kind of sightseeing flight. He gave some lackluster advice and then flew back to Port Morrisby. Phillips would later on mention on this meeting. I said that I did not think an immediate evacuation was necessary, even saying to Kow's wife if the volcano got violent that she should get into a jeep and go to Cakakota. Needless to say, his decision for no evacuation would be incorrect and a very bloody one. Eventually, the dead at Higatu were exumed from where they fell and re-eried with the proper rights. The ineffectiveness of the pre- disaster preparations is very clear to see, and it had a cost of nearly 3,000 lives, but it did act as a vital study point for learning about volcanoes. Loads of photographs were taken during the eruption, and when it finally stopped erupting in 1956, Mount Lamington had taught everyone a lot of lessons. Papa Newu Guinea, interesting, would eventually gain its independence from Australia 20 years later in 1975. So, it's scale time. is going to be a nine. And this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Please let me know in the comments below. Now, this video, as you can probably tell, has been a bit rough on my voice. This is due to me still having a rather rough cold at the moment. So, please, I do apologize for my bad voice and for my awful pronunciation of some of the names in this video. Anyway, this is a plan for production. All videos on the channel creative coms attribution shite license plate videos by me John in the currently very cold corner of southern London UK. All that's left to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music can you do me a favor and play me out please? [music] >> [music] [music] >> It is the evening of the 12th of August, 2015, and everything in the port of Tanzhin is seemingly as normal. Various chemicals and goods are stored on site, waiting to be imported and exported from Binhai Economic Zone [music] in China. It is the largest man-made port in mainland China, and workers are busy on site at hundreds of different industries. Without warning, a fire begins inside a storage warehouse on a 46,000 square meter site responsible for handling hazardous chemicals. The burning quickly increases in intensity. As expected, firefighters swamp the site, attempting to douse the flames. In a breakdown of communication as to what's stored on site, no one is aware of the dangerous chemicals involved. Quickly, an explosion occurs, followed by an even bigger one 30 seconds later. What has happened is one of the world's top 10 non-nuclear explosions. Today we're looking at the port of Tanzhin Disaster. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. Today's video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos, then you can from £1 per month. And as always, the links will be in the pinned comment below. >> [music] >> A very big port. This is Tanzhin. It is the seventh busiest port in the world, giving access to the Yellow Sea. It is also the largest man-made port in mainland China. Needless to say, this is one big ass place. Hardly surprising being located in mega import and exporting China and being located not too far from the country's capital city Beijing. Stupid amounts of material pass through the port every day. The site comes under the control of the Tanzhin municipality people's government. It is a key part to China's market friendly policies and as such it draws in a lot of international investment opportunities. Nearly half of the top 500 Fortune global companies have some sort of presence in the area. Because of this, many companies are set up to try and get a piece of the international juicy pie. One such company created to operate in the Tanzhin port area was a Dongyang bonded port Ruhigh International Logistics Company. It was formed in 2012 by two businessmen. Yujin Wei, a SinoMe executive, and Dong Shenyang, a salesman. The latter of the two had connections within the ports, namely from his father. He was the chief of police in the area. The two men set up their ownership of the company through other people to mask their involvement. But although on paper hidden, they were very much involved in pushing the company forward by any means possible. The company was to offer expedited customs and shipping for dangerous goods over the state-run entities by leaning on their connections within the industry. An 11acre site was acquired next to a new vehicle storage area. It was a little too close to residential areas for storage of deadly chemicals at just 500 m. Well, at least in the opinion of the first consultant the company called in for an environmental impact assessment. Not so much of an issue. They just got another consultant to give them the paperwork they required. As a note here, the guidance was that the nearest housing should be at least 1 kilometer away or twice the distance that it actually was. The company, although not granted a license to store chemicals on site by February 2014, it did begin holding client stock regardless. It was only given a temporary permission to do so in May the same year, essentially working outside the law for the first few months of operation. The company leaned on its contacts to expedite shipments for customers. It would be great for business, attracting more and more clients, so much so that the warehouse site had to be expanded, doubling the amounts of chemicals allowed in their temporary license. Containers were stacked higher than allowed and stored improperly in a confusing, messy mix of interchange shipments. Managers were not trained properly for their jobs, allowing poorly stored material and awful chemical handling practices to be widespread. Some of the chemicals that pass through the site were compressed and liquefied flammable gases, flammable liquids, flammable solids, materials that can spontaneously combust when in contact with water, including sulfur and calcium carbide. These chemicals are very important to know about, especially when dealing with firefighting activities. On top of the explosive stuff, the sight moved toxic chemicals such as sodium cyanide and corrosive products the likes of formic acid, phosphoric acid, metacyic acid and even costic soda. Around 1 million tons of chemicals were transported by the company per year and as stated in an AIA report, the company has 70 employees and generates an annual turnover of 30 million yan, i.e. €4.2 million. Now, that temporary permit to operate would only last 6 months, but it wouldn't be an issue for the company as it just operated without one between October 2014 and June 2015. They would be granted a new license, but it doesn't mean that the operation was anywhere by any means safe. the disaster. It is the closing hours of Wednesday, the 12th of August, 2015, and a car fire has been noticed by nearby residents of the Ruhigh International Logistics Company site. Not long after being reported, the first firefighters arrived on site at 10:56 p.m. However, access to the Ruhigh storage area was hindered by overstack shipping and chemical containers. By now, the fire seemed to have spread to a much larger incident than just one car. More firefighters arrived on the site. By now, much of the staff at the Ruhigh site had fled the flames. Understandable, but this would be deadly. Little information was passed on to the firefighters. Because of this, and when confronted with the fire, they did what would be completely reasonable. They began dousing the flames with water. This was around 11:04 p.m., but the efforts would be in vain. The flames spread, prompting an evacuation. As police helped people escape, the fire continued to rage in intensely. At 11:34 p.m., an explosion rang out from the site, registering a magnitude of 2.3, estimating an equivalent of 3 tons of TNT. The explosion then opened and exposed more chemical containers to fire and moisture. There would be no chance for anyone to react to the initial explosion for the first responders as a second detonation rang out just 30 seconds later. This one would be a 2.9 magnitude. The second explosion was far greater, ignited the ammonium nitrate on site, creating an explosion with an equivalent of 21 tons of TNT. Although this has also been estimated up to 400 tons of TNT. There is kind of differing reports on the amount of explosive force. The explosion shot out a shock wave being felt up to 10 km away from the epicenter. Almost everything within 1 kilometer had been eviscerated. Buildings, people, and material were completely destroyed. Beyond that, many buildings were severely structurally damaged with windows being broken at the 10 km mark. In total, around 17,000 housing units would be affected by the explosion in some sort of way. First responders were confused in initial moments after the explosion due to improper communication between the different agencies involved. As such, no one really knew where the explosion had originated from and what the explosion was. And on top of that, they didn't know how many people were killed or even how much damage had been done. Many of the emergency first responders upon reaching the site didn't know they were dealing with toxic chemicals. As such, they weren't equipped with the proper protective equipment. This would later result in many reporting respiratory injuries from their exposure. Anyone who was found injured after the explosion was evacuated and taken to hospital. However, many remained unreovered. When reaching the site, first responders prioritized searching for the survivor for the survivors instead of trying to deal with the chemical disaster that was unfolding in front of them. As such, much of the deadly material was left to burn, releasing their toxic fumes into the atmosphere. The next day, after the explosion on the 13th, the military began to help with the emergency response. However, by the afternoon, firefighting had to be stopped whilst chemical experts assessed the remaining risks of the burning. By the time emergency response had ended and the cleanup began, the death toll was estimated at 173 with nearly 800 injured, ranging from minor to life-changing injuries. The families of the dead firefighters amongst the victims would receive 2.3 million yuan, roughly 360,000 US. In addition to the 17,000 damaged buildings, 12,000 vehicles were written off coming in to a cost including infrastructure damage at roughly 1.1 billion US. aftermath. Cyanide was discovered in the river that was close to the site which ran off onto the into the sea by the environmental protection office of Tayan. The recorded amount was well above the allowed limit. They also set up air monitoring equipment downwind from the site and discovered high levels of airborne pollutants including methylenzene, tricomthylene and epoxy ethane as stated in preventing the preventable by Susan Lloyd. The fire and explosions had created a terrible environmental issue in order to try and prevent more chemicals running off into the local water course and containment perimeter was made of a meter high embankment. This was set up at a 3 kilome distance around the epicenter. Eventually, air pollution levels were back to normal by September the 4th, 2015. Now, the damaged properties were offered to be bought back by the Thyan at a price of 1.3 times the pre-explosion value. But what was the cause? Well, we can break it down into three parts. The first being the initiating event, the second being the Ruhigh Company and the rules [music] it bent to operate and the third being the emergency response. Let's look at the latter first. The inadequate response to the initial fire and subsequent explosions was likely because the first responders were not fully prepared likely due to being port employees and not properly trained firefighters as noted by AIA. They the firefighters were also very young 18 or 19 years old and had little experience. According to the press their training is extremely limited. physical training in the morning, short courses in handling the equipment and a self-study manual. They were completely unprepared and also by the second cause, the Ruhigh Company, who had been illegally storing far more chemicals that they were licensed to. This meant that the firefighters didn't know what they were dealing with. Chinese investigators discovered that more than 11,300 tons of dangerous goods were stored at the site, including explosive and combustible material making up 800 tons of ammonium nitrate, 680 tons of sodium cyanide, and 290 tons of nitro cellulose, the latter of which was capable of selfigniting when exposed to heat. The first responders didn't know what was on site due to not being properly reported and stored. Investigators would file a report in February 2016. This would set out the initiating event. The report would place the beginnings of the explosion to nitroc cellulose. You see, during shipping, to stop it from an unexpected whoopsie, it needs to be wet in an agent such as ethanol, isopropanol, or water. At Ruhigh, this was done by placing the nitroceros in plastic [music] bags with the wett agent. warehouse staff had accidentally damaged the plastic bags during transport. This allowed the wetting agent to evaporate and some of the nitro cellulose to fall out of the packaging. This meant that the highly combustible material was now exposed and with the temperature on the 12th being 35° centigrade outside. This allowed temperature within the materials container to rise, further drying out the nitro cellulose to a point that its explosion was just a matter of time. So when all three parts of the disaster were combined, it is very easy to understand how it got so out of hand so quickly. 49 people would be charged and convicted from both government organizations and the higherups at Ruhigh with Yu Jui being given a suspended death sentence with life imprisonment. The site of the blast was repurposed into a park named Hyang Park. It was turfed over and is described as an ecological park. So, it's going to be a seven on the disaster scale. And this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a plentiful production. All videos on the channel are creative common attribution share like licensed. Plenty of videos are produced by me, John, in a currently fairly cold corner of southern London, UK. All that's left to say is thank you very much for watching. I Mr. Music, can you play us out please? >> [music] >> They say rules are written in blood. Be it fire regulations after a deadly building inferno, machinery instructions after an accident, or like our subject today in which a landslip would result in tragedy and important changes to the rule books that British trains operate under. A series of preventable events would result in the first fatal accident involving a British mainline train in 13 years. Many had hoped that the bloody days of the '9s and early 2000s of improper maintenance and negligence had long since passed. But today, sadly, like all bubbles, it would have to burst. Today, we're looking at the 2020 Stonehaven train derailment. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. Today's video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos as well as ad free access to the videos when you can from just £1 per month. And as always, links will be in the description below. [music] 79 miles from Edinburgh, this is the Scottish town of Stonehaven. His history goes way, way back to the Bronze Age, but that is a little bit too far for a railway disaster video in the 2020s. The town has a population of some 11,000 people in 2020. And although not massive, just look at this aerial photo, it still was large enough in 1847 for a train station as part of the Abedine Railways Company's line between, unsurprisingly, Dundee and, you guessed it, Abedine. The route has 13 stations which in the late 2010s had passenger numbers varying between a few hundred at some of the least served stops like Gulf Street up to a million per year at the likes of Dundee. The line is operated under absolute block signaling principles. This is a not so modern method of controlling trains, but it is adequate enough for relatively low traffic routes. The signals are controlled locally from free signal boxes at Lauren Kirk, Carment, and Stonehaven. They communicate between each other and trains via the UK railway standard GSMR radio. Signals also communicate to accept approaching trains via bell codes. Each of these signal boxes has a crossover to allow trains to cross over from the up to down lines. Oh yes, and as it's a UK railway video, the tracks are labeled up and down. So for directions, confusingly, down is northbound and up is southbound in our video today. So up is towards Dundee to the south and down is towards Abedine to the north. The route has a maximum speed limit of 100 mph, although different areas have lower speeds as written in SRSP09 Dundee to Abedine route description by Network Rail. The line is unelectrified, meaning diesel trains fly the route. These included multiple units like the classes 158 and 170 trains, as well as the good old classic, the HST125. This is the main train of our story. Designed in the 1970s and a British icon of intercity travel pretty much until a couple of years ago. I know they're still in use in many parts of the UK and even there are a few sets in Mexico, but in 2025 they are largely on the way out. However, the sets still in use over the years have had to be modified to be allowed to carry on in passenger service on network rail infrastructure. This was things like replacing the manually operated slam doors with powered doors and better disabled accessibility. For Scott Rail, the sets were modified from 2017 by Westinghouse Air Technologies Corporation based in Doncaster. The route is also driven over by a few different operators such as LNR, Scott Rail, Cross Country, and the good old Caledonian Sleeper. Now the route between Carman signal box and stone haven involves running through cutting but is as described in earthworks cutting slopes and embankments on network rails website as an excavation that allows railway lines to pass at an acceptable level and gradient through the surrounding ground that is composed entirely or predominantly of soil. They also say most of our infrastructure slopes are in excess of 150 years old and do not offer comparable levels of compatibility and resilience to modern engineered slopes. Now such cutings are susceptible to landslides. I mean it's hardly surprising when heavy trains rumble past at high speeds. It can loosen the ground especially if engineering practices were a little bit more primitive when the cutting was made. The area was known to have unstable cutings for the best part of 100 years when a landslip occurred in 1915 causing a derailment. A landslip blocked both the up and down lines on the 21st of August 2008. This resulted in network rail instructing their subcontractor curillion in 2009 to commence setting about some improvement works around the car area. A designer erupt was contracted by currillion. This was to design a completely new drainage system for the western side of the line along cutting numbered ECN5yd051. This was just north of Carman signal box. The drainage in the area was proving to be an inadequate crest drain made up of a 9in diameter clay pipe that ran water off into track drainage. Arup designed a new and improved drainage system making use of things called French drains. That is a perforated pipe buried in a channel covered in gravel. An impermeable membrane was to be placed on the base and the railway cutting side with a geo textile lining the non-railway side. The channel sloped for 306 m as it followed along the edge of a field that met the railway property. After which the drain followed the crest of the cutting sloping steeply for 53 m. After there it ran at track level for 13 m discharging out to an open channel that then let water out into Karen water at a bridge that carried the line. Inspection pits were installed along the drain. These helped in maintenance and inspection of the area. The new drain was finished in 2012 by Kore. During the works to install the new drainage, foliage was removed and the original drainage was found to be massively damaged. Good job. It was properly replaced. Right. The disaster. It is the night of the 11th of August 2020 and heavily sustained rains would cause a nightmare situation for the next day's rail operations. During the night, multiple signals had failed and tracks had flooded and a number of landlips had been reported in the area. This had shut down much of the lines, leaving only the Abedine to Dundy route still open. By the commencement of services on the morning of the 12th of August, the job was most definitely up the wall. The first two southbound trains of the day passed Carment without issue. A couple of the next trains were cancelled or turned short due to flooding, causing the route to Edinburgh and Glasgow be closed. Now at 6:38, a service scheduled to travel to Glasgow, Queen Street departed Abedine. It was to terminate at Dundee due to disruptions of the day. The service had the head code of one Tango 08. It was made up of four Mark III carriages with a HST power car on each end. During his trip south, a bit of flooding below the rail head at Newton Hill was observed. It was below the rail head and thus not required to be reported. Around the same time, a northbound Invenesse service passed Carment and no issues were reported until reaching Newton Hill where it made an emergency call to Abedine Signal Box to report that the flooding had now reached above the railhead. Thus, the route was shut for any new trains. Train one Tango 08 stopped at Stone Haven at 6:53 in the morning, Ben continued on its southbound journey. A northbound service to Bravo 13 stopped at the Karman signal box to report a landslip on the upline near Ionus Bridge. This was further south of the Carman signal box. One Tango 08 passed the Carment signal box at around 7:00 a.m. This was around the same time that the other train was reporting the issue to the signaler. Not long after passing the signal box, a railway emergency call was sent out from Carment reporting a landslip around the Ionus Bridge area. One tango 08 stopped about 570 meters before the landslip and prepared to return back to the Karman signal box. Train to Bravo 13 continued northbound and was then held at Stonehaven due to the reported flooding further north. Concerned that one Tango 08 would be stranded, the Scotland route control room requested the car signal send the train back north towards Stonehaven. This required the train crossing over from the upline to the downline over the points next to the signal box. The train would be held there for a while due to the points needing to be properly secured with a piece of wood called a scotch block and metal clamps. Now, the signal wasn't trained to do this, nor were they required to. Because of this, a mobile operations manager, also known as a mom, had to be dispatched from Abedine. This would take some time due to the poor weather. The local operations manager was also dispatched along with another mobile operations manager who both arrived on the site around 9:30. The original mom had arrived at around 9:00 in the morning and began the work to set the points. They eventually set and the train was authorized from the signal to cross onto the downline. The area was very well staffed by now with two moms and a local operations manager. Anyh who, train one tango 08 passed over the points around 9:30 in the morning. It moved onto the downline and after being cleared of the points, took power up to a line speed of 75 mph. This was due to no land steps being reported and no obstructions being reported, at least until as far as Stormant. One Tango 08 got up to a speed of around 73 mph. The track took a curve to the left. This obstructed the view along the railway cutting and all of a sudden an obstruction was seen across the track. It was the embankment of the cutting along the western side of the track. The driver applied emergency brakes but it was too late. The leading power car struck for debris and derailed from the running line. The track then had a curve towards the right as it entered the bridge over the car water. The train progressively derailed pushing down towards the right hand cess. The leading power car fell off the bridge and crashed down into a wooded embankment. Upon hitting the ground, the driver's cab became detached, followed by the remaining of the power car catching on fire. The following vehicles progressively derailed and went off in different directions. The first car crashed on its roof with the second passenger car shooting off towards the right. The following third car went down the embankment and the fourth passenger car ran over the first with the rear power car remaining upright. There were contractors working on the bridge at the time. They whilst seeing and almost being hit by the accident immediately called 999 and this was around 9:37 in the morning. The contractors would help with the injured and dump timber into the river to create a temporary bridge. The nearby local area manager and the two moms arrived on scene at 9:52 in the morning and again began to assist. A guard who was was passing on the crash service made their way to a linesside telephone and contacted the signaler at Coleman signal box. The remoteness of the location meant that emergency services would struggle to reach the area. But thankfully, the crash site was located at 10:12 in the morning with police arriving first, followed by Scottish ambulance services by 10:20. There were only nine people aboard the service that morning, mainly due to CO controls, poor weather, and the time of day. Of the nine, three would die. This included the driver, the guard, and a passenger. Another three would be evacuated to hospital were severely injured and the remaining who were also injured were later on taken to hospital as well. Works to investigate and repair the line began almost instantly with RIB investigators reaching the crash site by 6 p.m. on the same day. But it would take a long time to get the track opened. Before the first vehicle could be removed, a whole access road had to be built. meaning that it wouldn't be until the 7th of September until the first vehicle would be recovered. The last vehicle was successfully lifted from the crash site on the 15th of September. A few days later, the line was officially handed back to Network Rail on the 19th, although the line wouldn't actually reopen to traffic until the 3rd of November because it wouldn't just involve cleaning up the landslip, and I'll cover why in a little bit. The wrecked vehicles were stored on a separate site undercover for the investigation. Investigators would work at the crash location well into 2021, taking soil samples, assessing water dispersion, examining gravel, and importantly, forensically reviewing the drainage system installed along the railway cutting. The investigation. So, as I mentioned just a few moments before, the group responsible for investigating rail accidents in the UK is the rail accident investigation branch. They began scouring the cutting embankments for any clue as to why the landslide occurred on a relatively by railway standards newly refurbished piece of earthwork. The evidence from the rail head pointed that the cause of the derailment was from the first set of wheel flanges being pushed off the track from the debris. This was found to have damaged the leading car's lifeguards, breaking them off. These are pieces of metal that are placed before the first wheel set, but are meant to deflect debris off the track away from the wheels. The debris was found to be of gravel from the drainage channel, which had washed out from the 15 m long steep slope down from the crest of the cutting. The CCTV taken from the train showed the debris just before impact. And importantly, the rear CCTV caught an image of water flowing from the wash out point. This was showing that water was running out from near the drainage channel. A survey of the washout are drainage found some very concerning issues. The first of which was in some sections the geoexile material was completely emitted from the drainage channel. This is not good as it could allow for fine particles of soil to clog up the gravel which in turn could redirect the water flow off the cutting embankment crest. But it most importantly showed that a krillin had made some unauthorized design changes. A camera was run along the drain and a section was found to have been installed incorrectly. This was the perforated area of the pipework. This should be facing upwards. But it was found to have been installed incorrectly facing towards the site. This could allow water to run off that could dislodge the gravel from within the drain. An earthn bund was found near the steep incline of the French drain. This was not on the plans and due to construction debris being found amongst it pointed that it was made by krillin construction workers. This would have directed water down onto the top of the drainage channel, concentrating it at the top of the incline. A gully caused by water erosion had formed on the ups slope side of the bund showing that it had directed water to the channel, thus causing the gravel to wash out down the channel onto the track. It was found that the wash out occurred between 8:15 and 9:00 in the morning, just 38 minutes before train 1 Tango 08 traverse the section. Basically, Currillion had been making changes to the plans through both incompetence and poor workmanship without informing the designers. The RAIB would release their report into the accident on the 10th of March, 2022. It pointed out the changes to the drains design and the casual factors of the older trains design that created the situation of the derailment to be much more likely. The report set out 20 recommendations, including training for guards to use train cap radios on board HST sets, seeking improvements to rolling stock glazing to reduce lacerations during accidents, better infrastructure monitoring, and a review of network rails contractual and project management systems. At the same time as the RAIB investigation, a criminal investigation was underway from the Office of Road and Rail, Police Scotland, and the British Transport Police. In August 2022, they forwarded their findings to the Crown Office and procur fiscal service for consideration for criminal charges. Network Rail faced health and safety charges to which they admitted guilt on the 7th of September 2023. They were ordered to pay 6.7 million in fines and would pay 1 million out in compensation to the victims. This was out of court, though. The reason why it took so long for the line to be reopened was due to the drainage needing to be completely rebuilt. Needless to say, this would take time to be done correctly this time. And this brings us back to the rule book changes which I mentioned at the beginning of the video. This is that drivers must now report any flowing form of water even if it wasn't affecting the operation of the train at that time. It is quoted as flowing or pooling water that might not be affecting trains at the moment but could be affecting structures or earthworks. This is basically trying to improve vigilance because during the Stone Haven disaster potentially a small flow of water may have been seen earlier by the other drivers who had gone along the line which could have triggered a line closure before a total wash out had occurred. So, it's scale time. is going to be a free and this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a plenty of foot production. All videos on the channel are creative common actuation share like licensed. Plenty of foot videos were used by me John and currently quite cold corner of southern London UK. And all there to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music play us out please. [music] Heat. Heat. [music] It is Saturday the 25th of October 1902 and dictator of Guatemala Manuel Estrada Cabraa is celebrating the festivis mineralis fair. The event is a vital propaganda tool used to bolster Cabera's grip on the country. Anything that might tarnish the fair has been played down or even covered up. This includes disasters of the natural variety. Now, as the fair plays out in its Roman style temple, a community around 200 km away has been wiped off the face of the earth from a volcanic eruption just a few hours before the festival was to kick off. The government would try and cover up the existence of the eruption, which the volcano was a complete surprise to many. But although a surprise, it would be one of the worst eruptions of the 20th century. Today, we're going to have a look at the 1902 eruption of Santa Maria. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. Today's video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos, then you can from just £1 per month. And as always, links will be in the pinned comment below. >> [music] >> Santa Maria. This is the mountain of Santa Maria. It sits along what will be known in the modern day as the Central American Volcanic Ark. This range of volcanoes span five countries. Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nikuagua, and Costa Rica. Today we're looking at solely this area, the Sierra Madre de Chipas, more specifically the section in Guatemala. It runs along the western edge of the country. It is thought the range was formed over 30,000 years ago. Part of the range is Santa Maria. Throughout all of recorded history in the region, the mountain never showed any signs of being an active volcano. Thus, it was thought to be extinct. It is one of the tallest mountains in the area with a height of 12,467 ft. Although other eruptions in the country had occurred throughout the 1800s, for example, Fuego in 1896 and in 1885, PA just to name a [music] couple. Vast volcanic activity was somewhat of a regular occurrence. The area is more well known for earthquakes, however, but usually the two do go hand in hand. But Santa Maria had gained little interest from vulcanologists. The area around the mountain was fertile enough to sustain multiple coffee plantations. The local economy had thrived after the crop was introduced, helping develop the nearby city of Kit Tinango. There are many settlements near the mountain, two of which were the twinned towns of San Pedro and San Marcos and the aforementioned Quit Salinango. Now, at the turn of the century, life around Santa Maria was pretty unvulcanic. Well, until 1902, a bad year. So, our story actually will end with Santa Maria's eruption because in the leadup to the Big Bang, the region around the mountain would be getting very active in different ways. On the 18th of January 1902, an earthquake hit the area. The village of San Martin had some buildings collapse, but although opening out the year, the worst was yet to come. Often earthquakes occur in the region around April time as noted in volcanoes of Guatemala by Tempest Anderson. Guatemala has always been considered a district particularly subject to earthquakes, especially at the changes of the seasons in April, May, and October and November. But they had been less frequent than usual for some years before 1902. On the 18th of April 1902, another cluster of earthquakes would hit the region, damage ranging into hundreds of buildings being affected. Between January and April, locals had experienced multiple small tremors. The main quake on the 18th would be described firsthand by Gustaf E in his American Geographical Society paper. The movements lasted 3 minutes. at first gentle but increasing to a maximum then declining. During the night there were smaller shocks and the others the next day. These shocks were renewed in the night and there was one tremor which lasted for 15 minutes. This was heavy enough to cause the telephone poles to swing perceptively for that length of time. I could observe swaying of our low house, the wall of which was not over 8 ft high. Every house in town was cracked more or less seriously. All roofs settled and some fell. Not long before the earthquake, heavy rains, lightning, and thunder ravaged the region. This is considered uncommon, but they are common during volcanic activity. It would seem Santa Maria was awakening, but no one had really noticed. The earthquake in April would take between 800 and 2,500 lives during its magnitude of 7.5 few minutes of chaos. The region would be hit with multiple aftershocks over the following months. The eruption. It is the 24th of October 1902 and the area around Santa Maria was showing signs of unrest. Minor tremors had been felt all morning. By late afternoon, rumbling could be heard from the mountain and plumes of steam could be seen. A dark cloud could be seen coming from the volcano from nearby Quitsinango. As the evening came in, sand rained down, blanketing the area. Towards the east of the mountain at Pelvita, a coffee plantation, ash began to fall. Lightning and thunder clapped out around the mountain summit. And as the sky cleared, a mushroomlike cloud could be seen for quite a distance. As the night rolled in, and the 24th slithered into the 25th, pummus stones rained down onto the bath house called Sabina towards the southeastern foot of the now erupting volcano. Again, the Helveta coffee plantation would receive a downpour, but this time it had progressed from ash to pummus stones. They were between 15 and 25 cm wide with a weight of around half a pound or 200 g. The sizes of the stones launched from the volcano had increased, battering all nearby settlements. The explosions coming from the mountain could be heard as far away as El Salvador and Honduras. However, at least initially, Guatemalans in the area thought the explosions were premature festivivalis celebrations. This may have delayed the initial evacuation of residents. During the largest explosion, a crater almost 1.5 km wide was formed. As the morning crept on into the 25th, such was the sky was so dark that in order to carry on with their normal business, locals had to navigate via candle light. The heavy asheall resulted in building roofs being overloaded, resulting in collapses, causing people all over the nearest villages to be crushed within their homes. Between 12:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., pyrolastic surges crashed down from the volcano. Several miles towards the southeast and several hundred miles towards the west and southwest. During these surges, trees were uprooted, livestock was swept away and thousands of lives would [music] be lost. Many houses were made of a boat and straw. These offered little in the defense of pyrolastic surges, adding to the casualties of the eruption. Gustaf Einson had described the flows as hurricanes and after visiting the affected areas after the volcano had subsided [music] described the destruction as while this tremendous hurricane lasted for only 4 hours it did more damage than all the other phenomena of the eruption. It was during this time that most of the mud fell and that all trees for 100 miles to the west of the volcano were stripped of their leaves. The volcanic cloud was estimated to be between 27 and 29 km high. Explosions and ash fall subsided [music] after the 26th. And a few days later, daylight began [music] to creep back in from behind the clouds. The massive crater that had formed on Santa Maria would emit white puffs of steam for weeks and months. Rock falls down from the mountain summit to the crater became a regular occurrence as the mountain tried to resettle. Thousands of people were missing and many more tens of thousands of people have been made homeless from the vast damage inflicted on housing and infrastructure throughout the region. Economically the volcano was disastrous with thousands of tons of coffee destroyed. Most livestock post eruption that had once grazed freely amongst the mountainside had died from the ash polluted [music] water. The region stank of death as rotting animals and people alike remained undisposed of. The government of Guatemala was very uninterested in acknowledging the eruption, let alone assisting the affected areas. Which leads us back to the opening of this video. The aftermath. The official government issued newspaper of Guatemala called Dario Deentral America focused more on the celebration of the festivis mineralis instead of the massive volcanic eruption that happened on the same [music] day. The government instead put out that maybe the volcano was happening in Mexico towards the west. Financial assistance to the region around Santa Maria [music] wouldn't come from the Guatemalan central government until December 1902. And even still, this wasn't a lot of money and only just an extension on funding for the earlier earthquake that the area [music] had experienced. In the meantime, the local government of Qualinango had to sort itself [music] out, and it was hardly a surprise to anyone, but it was overloaded with the humanitarian crisis. It was still dealing with the aforementioned [music] aftermath of the devastating earthquake in April. Amongst the suffering, a malaria outbreak occurred, adding even [music] more to the death toll. The wider government didn't actually bother recording the death toll. As such, the official number was non-existent. It has been estimated that between 3,000 and 9,000 people [music] lost their lives in a devastating pyrolastic surges and the following humanitarian crisis. Agriculture was severely affected in the areas [music] that had the worst sandfall. On top of this, the paths the local rivers had taken had changed from burst banks and new gullies being formed. This washed away any other remaining vegetation. Again, I'm quoting Eison here. I was shown in several places ground which had been changed in color by the deposited sand, and it was believed that such soil had been greatly injured in quality. Parts of the port of Okos along the coastline of the west of Guatemala had subsided, resulting in houses once safe from the tides being flooded. The region was hit for months with food shortages, energy shortages, and [music] uncontaminated water shortages, severely hampering the recovery of the local population. Santa Maria would slowly quieten down over the following months. It would only stay quiet for another 20 more years when in 1922, another eruption resulted in a new lava dome getting the name Santiuto, which is still active today with minor eruptions. However, in 1929, another pyrolastic surge hit residents near the volcano, taking the lives of an estimated between 500 and 5,000 people. Santa Maria was just one eruption of 1902. One of the world's most deadly, the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelle, had occurred throughout the year, which interestingly, I've got a video on it. So, if you want to read more about the disaster, I really recommend Gustaf Einson's firsthand account of the eruption, and the link will be in the pin comment below. So, it's scale time. It's going to be a nine. And this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. And do you have any future suggestions for some natural disaster videos? Please let me know. I need to apologize for my poor video, poor voice here. I've got a cold yet again. [music] So once again, apologies for my awful pronunciations throughout the video. This is a plane difficult production. All videos on the channel are creative commons attribution share like licensed plain difficult videos produced by me, John, in a [music] currently very c cold corner of southern London, UK. And all we have to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music play us out please. [music] >> [music] [music] >> This is the Boeing 2707. It was the American hope of a supersonic passenger jet. It's a beautiful thing, but although costing around $1 billion US to develop, it will never fly. The axe swung in 1971, but the nails in its coffin were forged over a longer period of time. But why was it some fiery disaster on the runway? Well, no. surprising it being a Boeing that was involved in all the nails were much more along the lines of spiraling costs, Concord ruling the skies, and public opinion on supersonic flight souring somewhat. One of the more entertaining causes for the 2707's [music] demise was in 1964 when the Federal Aviation Authority tormented the city of Oklahoma for 6 months. But how did they do that? [music] Well, by flying supersonic jets over the city, faster than the speed of sound to generate over 1,200 sonic booms just to see what the crack was about with all the intercontinental supersonic flying. Needless to say, the good people of Oklahoma City were not impressed. I won't give away any more because we've got a whole video to go into and this is just a cold opening. So today we are looking at the Oklahoma City Sonic Boom [music] tests. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. Today's video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access and add free access [music] to the channel's videos, then you can from just £1 per month. And as always, the links will be in the pinned comment below. >> [music] >> The future of air travel. The 1950s and 1960s were a crazy fast time of innovation. Air travel had gone from this to this. It must have felt like that there was no end to the technological advancement. The next move in the jet age was to the supersonic age. This initially came along with the advent of supersonic serial production military aircraft in the early 1950s. Of course, this led into supersonic bombers and traditionally bomber aircraft would find civilian variants for carrying of people. Just take a look at this big bastard for example, the Fairman F6D Goliath. So it wasn't a surprise that post supersonic exploitation. A few civilian faster than sound aircraft programs would be launched. After the British and French got all loved up and it seemed likely they would collaborate on a new passenger jet, later known as the Concore project. JF Kennedy announced in 1961 that a US-led supersonic jet project would be part subsidized by the federal government. A program was launched two years later and the three biggest aircraft manufacturers at the time came forward. This was Boeing, Loheed and North American Aviation. Now whilst all this was bubbling away and the foreign Anglo French project also chugging along in Europe, the prospect of supersonic passenger jets flying over American cities became a very real one. Thus, the Federal Aviation Authority wanted to assess what the US population would think of the new super fast modern method of travel. This would require a realworld assessment to see how people perceive being bombarded with sonic booms. Now, where to do the testing? Well, why not pick a city with a strong reliance on the aviation industry? I mean, maybe they wouldn't complain so much. So as stated in the report into the testing, the metropolitan area of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma was selected for [music] study of community reactions to sonic booms because of many features favorable to such a study. [music] Among them were some previous sonic boom experience. Military and civilian propeller and jet operations, no irregular topographical features, structures and buildings of various types and ages, test aircraft staging area, as well as other technical characteristics considered necessary for the accomplishment of the program. The report also notes on the population of Oklahoma. Almost a third of all Oklahoma City residents have had a personal or family connection with the aviation industry. [music] This extreme economic importance of local aviation is recognized by over 75% of [music] all residents. So we can infer that the FAA and the Office of Supersonic Transport Development thought Oklahoma to be a sympathetic audience to the testing on top of having a topographically useful area. Of course, they had no say in the matter. That was the [music] people who lived within the city. So, the city would be hit with multiple sonic booms a day, and a test pool of some 3,000 selected city residents would be interviewed to assess their annoyance of the booms. They were selected from three different distance groups off the flight tracks at up to 8 mi, between 8 and 12 mi, and 12 and 16 mi. This was to guide future flight plans and policies. The aircraft planned for testing were the F104 fighters with B-58 bombers getting in on the action. A set route would be flown by the aircraft which would cover densely populated areas both rurally and in the city proper. Four fully furnished, newly built test homes were procured for the experiments, which would be checked throughout each day to see if any pictures fell off the walls or glass broke in the windows. There was also a number of other houses that were rented by the FAA for other types of equipment for testing the effects of the sonic booms. So quickly let me explain what sonic booms are. So when something in our case an aircraft travels faster than the speed of sound, it pushes the molecules of air aside. This forms a shock wave. The shock wave creates a cone of pressurized air which shoots out in all directions. Part of the cone, if flying low enough, reaches the ground. The sudden change in pressure as the shock wave passes creates the audible bang. And the amount of pressure isn't particularly massive. It's more a sudden change as stated by NASA. The change in air pressure associated with a sonic boom is only a few pounds per square foot. About the same pressure change experienced riding an elevator down two or three floors. It is the rate of change, the sudden onset of the pressure change that makes the sonic boom audible. And for Oklahoma City booms, the pressure was going to be between 1 and 1.5 pounds per square foot, rising to 1.5 to two after 12 weeks. This was the rough estimate a supersonic passenger plane would generate. And vitally it was not enough to cause any damage. Or so they would think. The booms begin. So, the testing began on Monday, the 3rd of February, 1964 at 7:00 a.m. There would be eight booms scheduled per day with a few in the morning and the remainder in the early afternoon. The first aircraft flew along the pre-desated route at altitudes ranging between 21,000 and 50,000 ft running at speeds between MAC 1.4 and two. This was monitored along the route via ground engineers. The city had been informed at the testing, but no less it was a shock when the first rumbles hit out. For the first few weeks, the pressures gradually increased from 1 to 1.5 per square foot. City residents went along with the testing fairly well, at least in the first few weeks. The number of complaints were fairly low during the initial interviews, and an even lower amount was recorded as received by the FAA. Likely this was due to an intensive public relations campaign in the leadup to the commencement of the test, promising Oklahoma City would become a supersonic hub connecting the city to the world. However, many were concerned almost from the first boom. Residents experienced rattling window frames, cracked plaster, and rumbling furniture. But initially at least it was tolerated. As the allowable pressures slowly increased up to 1.5 pounds per square foot and the testing continued week after week, public opinion started to slowly drop. We can see this in this Oklahoma City Times headline. Councilmen ponder boom halt appeal. Acceptability ratings from interviews conducted in the first few weeks came back with a 99% of those asked accepting the sonic booms eight times a day. By the second interviews from the end of May and early June, the score had dropped to 94% with the annoyance percentage increasing from 13 up to 26 over the two interview periods. The test home showed no real damage and all within remained intact. The timetable of sonic booms marked important parts of the day for some with reports of people taking their lunch breaks after hearing the 12 noon passing flight. But a growing number of residents were less than happy. Financial claims were put into the FAA for broken windows, including some of the city's tallest buildings. But most claims would not come until the end of the tests. Resentment was rising. On the 12th of May 1964, an Oklahoma State District Court issued a temporary restraining order against the tests. It would be dissolved on the next day, but it wasn't for nothing, and more and more complaints were filed with the FAA. Civil groups began kicking up a stink by contacting national news agencies, which would understandably lead with multiple reports into the tests. Protests against the local government were also gaining momentum around May. By July, the end of the tests were in sight. Reflecting on the relief, a New York Times article headline would say, "Many in Oklahoma City relieved as sonic booms near end." By July, some 9,594 people had complained of some sort of damage or issue with their property during the testing. Including this number were a few thousand financial claims. But put a pin in that though, as I'll come back to this in just a little bit. The testing ended on the 31st of July in which over,200 sonic booms had been inflicted on the city's population. Final interviews with the 3,000 participants had a 92% approval rating down from the original 99 at the start of the experiments and the annoyance percentage had remained level at 25%. The data gathered from the testing would be picked over for the next couple of years by a few different agencies, leaving the residents of Oklahoma City a bit bewildered with the sixth month guinea pig experience. Damaged buildings were repaired and the normal boom-free life resumed. The aftermath. The report released by the National Opinion Research Center in January 1965 put a very positive spin on things. Although there were complaints, the reports written about the tests focused on the positive, 73% that had said that they could live with the booms indefinitely, glossing over the fact that one in four residents did not want them at all. Interestingly, when the press interviewed people, they were more damning of the testing, but still for it as for the betterment of the country. The people of the early 1960s were definitely a different flavor of patriotic. If it's for the betterment of our country, I guess we can stand it, one respondent to a New York Times article would say. Now, the reason why claims came in at the end was that people were waiting to see how much damage would occur. No point replacing a window to only have it smashed out a week later. As noted in a New York Times contemporary article, Mayor Schurk wrote, "The amount paid on claims can in no way be indicative of the extent of damage because many systems were waiting for the tests to end before filing claims so as to better ascertain the full extent of the damage. But arguably, some damaging complaints would have largely just been a footnote to a reported successful experiment. if it wasn't for the government trying to sherk any responsibility. So in total only around 200 financial claims were actually paid out to by the FAA even though 4,629 former damage claims were brought costing around $12,000. Around 94% of all claims were kicked back with the FAA claiming that the damage was caused by poor building quality. Leaving people out of pocket for repairs is not the best way to garner public support. It would lead to a class action lawsuit against the government in which it would fight to the bitter end. [music] It would eventually lose it in 1969, but a negative press it garnered would push public opinion against supersonic air travel. This in combination with any form of program of supersonic travel would require booms more than just the eight times a day that Oklahoma City experienced, as flight schedules normally run like that. This didn't exactly convince the American public of the future of this type of air travel. The optimism of the early 1960s had dwindled by the end of the decade and a supersonic passenger aircraft plan just became a little stale. This resulted in the death of the US program in the early 1970s and a ban on supersonic travel overland. But interestingly, supersonic travel still lingers. >> [music] >> There is a new company planning on building an airliner called the Overure by a company called Boom Supersonic. Personally, the idea of an aircraft built by a company called Boom doesn't really appeal to me, but it will be interesting to see if the plan ever comes off. So, this is my video on the Oklahoma City Sonic Boom [music] tests. It's going to be a one on my disaster scale, and this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know below. This is a plentiful production. All videos on the channel are creative commons attribution shellite licensed plain default videos produced by me John in the currently cold corner of southern London UK and all have to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music play us out please [music] >> [music] >> It is 2003 and a bridge is opening across the Brunswick River, Brunswick, Georgia, United States. But as we see in this picture, when the bridge was being constructed, there was actually already a bridge there. So why the new one then? Well, the original bridge has by the millennium proven to be a bit of a hindrance. is a lift bridge requiring traffic to come to a complete stop for ships to pass underneath. The new crossing removes this traffic causing feature. But the bridge, apart from being a traffic annoyance, also has been a bit of a bump stop for shipping in the area where cargo vessels had crashed into it at least twice. The first of the crashes is the subject of today's video, a kind of staple of a plainly difficult subject, and that is a naval induced unexpected self-d dismantling of a bridge. Today we're looking at the 1972 Sydney Lania bridge collapse. My name is John and welcome to Plenty Difficult. Today's video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the videos on this channel, then you can from just £1 a month. And as always, the links will be in the pinned comment below. [music] Access to the port of Brunswick and a bridge. So our story begins here with the creation of a new state park. This is Jackal Island is on the coast of the state of Georgia. Its story is a long one, but we won't go too much of a deep dive into that. But over the years, the island has been a plantation and home [clears throat] of a very expensive private club, which interestingly was the setting for the creation of the Federal Reserve. Over the years, post World War II, the state of Georgia planned to take over the island for use as a state park. Anyh who, on the 6th of October 1947, the state of Georgia bought the island for $675,000 and although setting up as a state park initially, it would not long after be set out as its own Jackal Island Authority. Now, the island was planned to be a bit of a tourist attraction. This would require the need of easy access. And when looking at a map, you can see a little issue, especially if you want to get to the island from nearby Brunswick. There is a 14-mile journey roughly from here to here. But how about cutting the corner and building a bridge, eh? Well, that is exactly what would happen. Melvin E. Thompson, governor of Georgia between March 18th, 1947 and November 17th, 1948, supported a new crossing. The project would be kicked backwards and forwards over the next year or so over subsequent governors, but eventually it would be completed in 1956. So, what was the bridge like? It was a 1m or 1.6 km long four-lane automobile crossing [music] and would carry US Route 17. The bridge would only be around 50 ft from the surface of the water in between each span and its concrete pier. Well, there was a big ship-sized elephant in this room, and that was the port of Brunswick. The Brunswick River was the main access to the shipping port. Thus, any bridge would need to be tall enough for vessels to go underneath. The new bridge would combat this need by having a 250 ft or 80 m wide section as a lift bridge. This was a section that could be lifted up to a height of 139 ft or 42 m when raised. It was enough for the type of shipping to navigate, but it would prove to be a bit of a challenge. Being a narrow opening, larger vessels had to align themselves with the bridge at quite a distance. This required a lot of adjustments which of course opens up the risk of operator error. Now on approach to the bridge, shipping has to radio the bridge operator who would initiate the lifting process. This requires the stopping of traffic with lights and barriers and then the actual lifting of the section. Pilots are provided for the passage of vessels through the bridge. They issue orders to the ship's crew in order to successfully navigate the challenging waterway. The larger ships coming out of Ogal Fort Bay, they have to start turning almost as soon as they leave the port. This is because, as we can see here, there isn't much space to turn. As such, ships are still turning as they approach the narrow bridg's opening, as stated by the NTSB. Because of the relatively large turning radius, a ship must begin turning before it reaches the main channel. The bridge was opened in 1956 and named after Georgiaorn poet Sydney Laurier. The cost in 1956 for the bridge was around 8 million which was partially funded by the federal government, but it still opened up as a toll road for the first 16 years. The bridge was all rather uneventful until as always in one of these videos it wasn't. November 1972. This is the SS African Neptune. It is a cargo ship. It is 350 ft long or 110 m and weighs in at roughly 11,000 short tons. And on the 7th of November 1972, she was in the port of Brunswick collecting cargo to ship to Kenya. The ship was not cleared to leave port until the evening. In the meantime, post loading, the ship's control gear and rudder were checked for his operational readiness. At around 2118, two pilots boarded the SS African Neptune. A tugboat was provided to assist the ship out of the dock and after which it was to maneuver under its own power out of the port and out into the channel. At around 2124, there were now five people in the ship's wheelhouse. This included Captain Stanko, the two pilots and two crew members, one of whom who was at the helm. The pilot in charge released the tug at 2137. Seeing his assistance as not very helpful, the ship navigated out of the port area successfully passing many m barges. The bridge was radioed and the operator began the bridge lifting process. This would result in multiple vehicles being stopped at the crossing. The lights on the bridge changed from red to green and this was to indicate to approaching ships that the span was lifted. The pilot issued the order 10° left to the helmsman. However, he was not being very effective in carrying out the order. Seeing this, the captain relieved him and ordered a replacement member of the crew to take over. Interestingly, this member who was relieved was later on thought to be drunk. The order was issued again and the SS African Neptune began to maneuver. A couple of minutes after this, at 9:46 p.m. or 2146, the ship was approaching the dangerous decision any pilot must decide upon, and that is the point of no return. This was the part of the journey in which once passed, aborting the approach to the bridge was no longer possible. Next, the order of full ahead came, followed by 20° left. A ship's mate noticed that the rudder was actually at 10° right. Noticing the lack of movement to the left, the pilot went back to the rudder indicator and also seeing that the right rudder ordered again 20° left. The order then followed for hard left and full of stern. They were shouted out as the ship continued to move towards the right bank of the river and then shortly after an order to drop anchor shot out. Seeing that a collision was unavoidable, the pilot ordered at 2148 hard right. The pilot blew the ship's whistle to try and warn the bridge of the impending disaster. At 2149, the ship was only traveling at between 1 to two knots, but it was still unstoppable. Some people aboard the bridge seeing the approaching ship decided to hight tail their way out of there. At 2150 the ship crashed into the bridge towards the right of the lift section. This was the southern portion of the bridge. Three sections of the bridge were dislodged from their peers and collapsed into the river. This was a 450 ft long length. Along with the bridge, eight cars and two trucks were plunged into the water, and this resulted in 24 people being submerged. After the collision, crew members from the ship started throwing out Life Boys and vests into the river. The bridge operator, after seeing the crash, called the City of Brunswick Police for assistance. Quickly enough, by 10 p.m., the first responders were on the scene with two Coast Guard boats arriving to help fish out the survivors from the water. Two of the rescued were via the African Neptune's lifeboat. The injured were evacuated to hospital, but as the rescue went on, it became clear that some were dead. Initially, one death was reported to the press, but a number would only increase. Several boats assisted from the harbor, including the very same tugboat that had helped the ship not long before. By the next day and the poor visibility of the night had lifted. The reported number of dead went to five and then finally to 10. The SS African Neptune was recovered back to Brunswick for investigation which we'll discuss in a short while. But in the wake of the crash, the bridge would be closed to traffic whilst repairs were undertaken. This would take 6 months to complete at a cost of approximately $1.3 million in 1972 money. [snorts] But what are the cause? Well, it's time to call in a long-term friend of the channel. Hello, NTSB. So, being a road bridge floater disaster, of course, these people would be involved. But it wasn't just the NTSB. The Coast Guard would also get in on the action. Regardless, both investigations would go over the ship's controls and mechanical components, as well as interviewing everyone aboard the bridge that night. Nothing concerning particularly came back about the ship itself. Everything worked as it should, meaning there shouldn't have been any issues with control of its direction. The SS African Neptune also had a very useful piece of kit, a course recorder. This took the recording of every rudder action and would provide and proved to be vital in the investigation. It showed that the rudder was being applied to the right instead of the requested left. During the interviews with the crew, the correct orders were sent out from the pilot. So, what on earth was going on? Well, it would seem that the helmsman was inputting the wrong directions, confusing left from right. But it wasn't as simple as that. The NTSB found that the rudder indicator was not the easiest to see from the wheel position, which meant the helmsman would have had difficulty getting the visual feedback required to understand how each input was actually affecting the rudder. Furthermore, it was found that the layout of the bridge meant that pilots couldn't see the rudder indicator either. As well as on top of that, it was found that orders were difficult to hear from the two different positions. This meant that mistakes couldn't be identified as easily as they should have been, thus putting the ship in a state it was at the point of no return. The Coast Guard also found that the act of turning whilst on approach was very dangerous and in future tugboats would be used if needed to align large vessels with the channel approaching the bridge with a sufficient stopping distance. On top of this, the stopping position of vehicles should be pushed back as to mitigate the risks of collision. But ultimately, the bridge itself was the danger. The crash of 1972 was deadly. But in 1987, another collision involving the bridge would occur. No one died on that one, but it was another nail in the coffin for the bridge. In response to the second crash, the Coast Guard declared the bridge a navigational hazard, which leads us back to the early 2000s and the opening of the new Sydney Lorna Bridge. This one is taller and better built, meaning ships don't have to thread a needle every time they need to get into Brunswick. And that's my video on the Sydney Lorna Bridge disaster. It's going to be a four on my scale, and this I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This a plenty for production. All videos on the channel are creative comments attribution share light license. Plenty of cool videos produced by me John and are currently wet and windy corner of southern London UK. And all that's left to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music play us out please. [music] >> [music] >> It is January 1973 and NASA has just cancelled a project. The space race is over and money is getting tight. The project on the chopping block is a fascinating propulsion system. The project had run since the 1950s and being peak nuclear age, of course, the project was atomic in nature. The project that was being taken out behind the barn to be put out of its misery was the nuclear propulsion project. But our story today will be more focused on just one part of this and that was around 10 years before its cancellation. that is of the destruction testing of a nuclear reactor in what seems to be a bit of a tradition during the age in the USA personally is my favorite part of this period of history back when destroying a reactor for the crack of it was just a normal part of any type of nuclear [music] reactor development and it yields this brilliant photograph of a nuclear reactor tearing itself apart like a 1980s action hero rips his t-shirt Today we're looking at the Kiwi Transient Nuclear Test. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. Today's video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access and adree access to the channel's videos, then you can from just £1 per month. And as always, the link will be in the pinned comment below. >> [music] >> Harnessing power to the stars. Harnessing nuclear power was post World War II at the forefront of many different industries. The obvious ones of nuclear reactors for producing nuclear weapons material and the other for generating almost endless electrical power. This got a lot of attention from the powers at be. But other concepts for the use of nuclear power were also entertained. In the neverending battle to get one up on the pesky reds during this period, nuclearpowered aircraft, trains, and automobiles were vomited out of the minds of scientists. Most of these ideas faltered at the design stage. Although a serious crack in nuclearpowered planes was attempted, and I do have a video on that, a rather old video. One such idea was a nuclearpowered rocket. it gained some traction. You see in the 1950s were a fearful time and the need to get bombs as far as possible spurned on the early days of a thermal nuclear rocket project because you see a rocket is very very good at delivering a payload, most notably a nuclear bomb over a long distance. Now the concept for a nuclearpowered rocket is beautifully simple. Instead of using chemical heat from burning propellants, it uses heat from a nuclear reaction. Don't worry, I'll go a little bit deeper into this a bit later on in the video. The original plans for a nuclearpowered rocket under the US Air Force and the armed forces special weapons project was transferred over to NASA after it was deemed that the Atlas missile project was looking like a good platform for Soviet annihilation in 1957. Spurned on by the Sputnik scare, NASA and the Atomic Energy Commission joined up to form Project Rover. The first stage of the project was to design and build a working reactor rocket motor. This would be given the name Kiwi A. The reactor was a proof of concept and not actually intended for flight, thus being given the name of a flightless bird. Now, I've skipped past a lot of information on the ins and outs of the decisions leading up to the first proof of concept. But, you know, we're here for a nuclear reactor explosion and not the inner workings of US defense policies of the 1950s and 1960s. Anyh who, Kiwi A ran between July 1959 and October 1960 over three test units. So the Kiwi powered rocket proves rather well the concept of a nuclear engine. So let's look at how it worked. It was a solid core fusion reactor. The core employed a graphite moderator loaded with highlyenriched uranium 235. A propellant of hydrogen is passed through the reactor core via a feed pump from a propellant tank. The hydrogen doubles up as the reactor's coolant as well. The fision reaction is controlled by actuated control drums which had neutron absorbing material on the face of it. If the drum is turned away from the face of the core, the power is increased. And conversely, when turns towards the core, the power is lowered [music] via neutron absorption. The high heat from the fishing heats up the hydrogen and the high heat gas expelled out of the nozzle at the rear of the engine produces thrust. Nuclear reactor rocket engines are beneficial in comparison to conventional rocket engines. As noted by NASA, nuclear thermal propulsion provides high thrust at twice the propellant efficiency of chemical rockets, freeing up weight and mass for payload and mission essential supplies aboard the spacecraft. But they do come with a downside. That [music] is that the exhaust out of the engine is radioactive. Thus, they are better suited for travel away from humans like in the latest stage of a rocket launch. So, Kiwi A proved the concept generating a thermal output of 70 megawatt at an exhaust temperature of 2,683 Kelvin and further developed the program. Next came Kiwi B. This brought about greater power outputs but new issues in the cases of vibration and heat damage. Although development issues were found, the project was deemed successful enough to warrant the next set of tests, and this was safety tests. Kiwi TNT. As a flight ready engine became more and more likely, the risk of an accident involving one crashing back to Earth had to be assessed. What better way to do this than to deliberately destroy a reactor? Scientists wanted to recreate a scenario as stated by NASA might happen if a chemical rocket booster aborted and dropped a non-critical nuclear reactor into the ocean where the water being a good neutral moderator would increase the likelihood of fisions and could make the reactor go critical very quickly. Other safety tests were conducted around the same time which included water submersion of core samples, but we won't go too much into that today. The destructive test was decided to be undertaken at the nuclear rocket development station in Jackass Flats, Nevada, where the other Kiwi rocket tests were done. A Kiwi reactor was modified for the experiment. This involved souping up the moderator cylinders to be turned face and not facing the core quickly. This allowed spikes in power within the core. The configuration of the core was near criticality even when the control drums were facing and thus poisoning the core. In order to allow for workers to prepare for the test, extra neutron absorbing plates were inserted into the core. This meant that once the plates were removed and turning of the absorbing control drums away from the core would cause a transient spike of criticality, thus in theory cause a power excursion that would be hot enough to vaporize parts of the reactor core, making a very big bang. The propellant supply was removed and instead of the nozzle for high temperature gases, a mirror was placed to aid in core photography. The entire reactor assembly was mounted on a railway car specially constructed for the test. They knew there would be radiation and material released from the intentional reactor deconstruction. Because of this, extensive air monitoring equipment was employed. On top of that, monitoring of the energy release from the test was set up in an extended ark from the test site out to around 50 mi. Two B47C aircraft were employed to track any radiation clouds at longer distances in addition to a U3A aircraft that was employed to monitor radiation direction. Now, much like the Borax destruction test, the weather would be vital to the experiment. Wind direction and speed were required to come in from the northeast direction as to push the radioactive effluence towards the Death Valley. The test was planned for early 1965 as the Kiwi B test came to an end and the morning of January 12th, 1965 was looking to have the ideal weather for the test. 2 hours before the experiment, almost everyone was evacuated from the test site. Apart from a few operators who operated the key locks to enable the control drums to be remotely controlled, control was handed over to the central control room and after the final remaining staff left the test site, the countdown began. Cameras focused in on the reactor. Then at the end of the countdown, operators actuated the control drums and then in an instant, criticality was increased within the core, blowing the vessel to pieces. The nuclear excursion ended as the reactor became not together anymore. The railc car assembly that the reactor sat upon was split in half. A bright yellow explosion shot out followed by a radioactive cloud with an estimated radioactivity of 1.6 meggauries or 59 pabules. The most common radionucleides released were cesium 138, strontium 92, iodine 134, zirconium 97, and krypton 88. The explosion created a debris field including damaged uranium fuel, graphite, and burillium, which was cleared for initial evaluation at a distance of 400 ft just 10 minutes after the test. After the dose rates dropped, recovery of recording devices and debris was undertaken. Trapnal damage from the reactor was over a relatively small area of between 100 and 200 ft. It was determined that at distances up to 450 ft from the center would have yielded deadly radiation doses, but 1,200 ft and beyond would yield not much more than the recommended average daily dose of radiation. Film badge dometers had been given to people living on the edge of the test area and milk samples from dairy farms in the clouds path were taken and the results were that the exposure amounts were pretty minimal. The aftermath the test yielded some vital information as to how a nuclearpowered rocket would react to a criticality event. The test site was cleared and recovered for reuse in just 6 days after the test. The explosion did little damage beyond dislodging a few temporary metal outouse buildings. What of the project as a whole though? Well, the lessons learned from Kiwi helped out in the development of the Nerther engine, but sadly a nuclear rocket was never launched. Even though a plan for a nuclearpowered shuttle was laid out in 1970, the newly elected Nixon government from 1969 sought out to cut back on federal spending and the money hole of a nuclear rocket program looked like the fat to be cut. Program would limp on with a reduced budget until its cancellation on the 5th of January 1973. Even though a small Nerva engine was close to flight testing, the concept still lingers on today with the ESA releasing a study in the 2020s and as late as 2023, NASA and DARPA announcing a partnership to demonstrate an NTR engine in space. This nuclear rocket would be a vital cog in any manned mission to Mars, allowing for lower weights of propellant and more reliable engine starting that a theoretical nuclear rocket engine could provide. So today the scale will be only at a one. And this is what I've got for my rather empty root cause analysis card as well. The destruction and the aftermath was pretty much all part of the plan. This is a plenty for production. All videos on the channel are creative common attribution share light license plate videos are produced by me John in the currently quite cold corner of southern London UK and all I have to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. music. Play us out, please. [music] Stay alone. [music] Stay up. Stay up. Hang up. [music] Stop playing around. Don't go burning the whole house down. You think you have found another ground. [music] It is the morning, 18th of November, 1999, and Texas&M students are waking up to a tragedy. A massive stack of logs, which had been in the process of being erected over the past few weeks, had suddenly collapsed, trapping multiple people underneath the pile. The stack once completed becomes one massive bonfire to celebrate the annual football match between the University of Texas and Texas A&M. The long-running tradition which hails back to 1907 had been over the years a highlight of the students year. I mean, what's not to like in a ridiculous bonfire? But as the rescue workers slowly remove each heavy log, it becomes readily apparent that the death toll is rising rapidly. Today we're looking at the 1999 Aggie Bonfire disaster. My name is John and welcome to Play Me Difficult. Today's video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos, then you can from just £1 per month. And as always, the links will be in the pinned comment below. >> [music] >> A long-unning tradition. Our collapse story goes way, way back before 1999 and the beginnings of an interesting tradition, the Aggie bonfire. The first bonfire was instigated by students of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas and took place on the 18th of November 1907 and it was less than an official event. It was an impromptu celebration of a win for the college's football team. The early days were basically a pile of wood and trash. These unofficial fires would continue to celebrate sporting events until the early 1930s when the event became more organized, sanctioned by the college and followed a more standard construction process. Interestingly, all the timber for the bonfire would be sourced by the students themselves, leading to a number of thefts of properties in the area. Understandably, it would annoy you if some students had nicked your firewood. Anyways, after being college sanctioned, sourcing of timber for the bonfire became more organized with the school providing cutting tools such as axes, saws, and even providing transport trucks. The college would even tell students where to cut, which in the first year of the college assistance in 1936, being invited to cut down a grove of trees on the edge of the city of College Station. Around this time, the design of the bonfire became more organized, developing from basically a big pile to a teepee inspired structure by the 1940s. The Tepee design made use of a central pole with other timber logs being rested up against it. This naturally limited the height of the bonfires [music] to the longest piece. But in the American tradition, it would get bigger and bigger as more and more layers and logs were piled up around the bonfire's perimeter. Heights were increased in the 1960s when multiple tiers were employed, splicing together multiple central poles, allowing a height of 109 ft in 1969. This, interestingly, would be the tallest one ever built. Now, the designs and structural plans for these bonfires were passed down year to year, mainly verbally and by amateur drawings, meaning structural loads were just kind of eyeballled. Plans for the year's bonfires were set out by a group of people called the red pots. These were a committee group of students that were initiated by the previous year's committee leaders. And the initiating, in American college tradition, included hazing and the occasional beating. These red pots would work on the fire almost full-time during the construction phase. In addition, other part-time workers would also get involved, but only work at a couple of shifts, either building or felling trees. Roughly around 3,000 students take part over the whole construction phase, and they are broken up into their different dormitories. 1970s rolled in, bonfires started to take on a wedding cake silhouette. The tearing of the bonfire p allowed for for wider, heavier, and stronger structures. A more standard design would be employed from the 1980s, which allowed for truly massive structures, six tiers tall. Along with the size came time, where the early days bonfires would only take a couple of days. Post 1980s, the whole project would be close to a couple of months. So, let's look at the process of how it was done. From the late 1970s [music] to the late 1990s, in early October each year, the wood for the bonfire would be felled. Each log was cut by hand using axes. The first stage is known as the cut, and it runs around 4 weeks long. The ground at the bonfire is prepared by lime stabilizing and compacting the soil. After logs are collected, the process moves onto the next stage known as the stack involving tying the logs to the center pole using wires. The center pole is two parts and center spliced together with a 10-ft join. Normally, it is repurposed utility poles and is buried up to 20 ft into the ground. This stage takes around 3 weeks to complete and is vital to the strength of the structure. Extra strength was given to the bonfire in the form of four guy ropes attached to four perimeter poles. The next stage was the push that ran for 24 hours a day, splitting the students into shifts. During this 10-day period, the first four levels are completed, followed by one day before the bonfire, the final two top floors. For this stage, no more than 70 workers are allowed on the stack at any one time. The bonfire stack is crowned with an outhouse, basically a small shed, which represents a frat house. And finally, on the day of the burn, the bonfire is covered with fuel ready [music] to be set a light. On average, several thousand logs are used, weighing into the hundreds of tons. Understandably, this makes one massive impressive fire for the between 30 and 70,000 spectators. The six tier bonfire design would carry on past the 1980s and into the '90s, and that was the exact style that would be behind the one built in the 1999 season. The collapse. On the early morning of the 18th of November 1999, around 50 workers are constructing the bonfire on polo grounds at the university campus. The stack has so far around 5,000 logs and was planned to have a few thousand more once completed. It was up to the fourth level at a height of around 40 ft. Cutting for the 1999 bonfire had begun on the 3rd of October and was seemingly running to schedule. The hive of activity was still running strong even at 2:00 a.m. and there were no real concerns this season, unlike a wash out that occurred in 1994. At 2:40 in the morning, some popping and creaking rang out and just moments later, the stack began to collapse, falling in the southeastern direction. Stack four and three fell over, creating a cavity between the base of stack one. Due to the speed of the collapse, no one working on top of the stacks was able to escape. Within minutes of the collapse, several people were trapped and emergency first responders began frantically calling out for anyone trapped within. You see, first aiders and paramedics are always on site during the build. And at 2:43 in the morning, the first 911 call was received as stated in US Fire Administration technical report series. The caller reported that the bonfire stack had collapsed and there may be as many as 30 people trapped in the debris. As the early morning dragged on and fire department responders arrived on scene, the decision to remove the logs by hand was made in order to reduce the risk of further collapse. An on-site triage was set up for the walking wounded, and it was thought that as many as 15 dead were in the failed stack. The only way to find out was to remove enough timber to recover the trapped and dead. Hundreds would assist in the search and rescue with students and rescue workers helping remove the logs. It would later be estimated that at least 3,200 people would attend over the 24 hours to help in some capacity. Even members of the university's football team chipped in. In the first couple of hours, 27 injured persons were transported off site for hospital care. Another would be sent to hospital later. However, in the first few hours, they were trapped under some logs. As each section of logs were removed, shoring had to be done to stop any further collapse. At 6:05 in the morning, three people were confirmed dead, followed by another 8 to 10 appearing dead just 20 minutes later. Bodies would be removed over the coming hours with the occasional survivor being pulled from the pile. The final body would be pulled from the stack at 55 minutes 12 on the 19th of November. And at 214, nearly 24 hours after the collapse, the last log was removed. This left the death toll at 11 and 28 injured immediately after the collapse. But sadly, the injured number would drop by one and the death toll would increase by one as one of the people taken to hospital would die on the 19th from their wounds. The collapse garnered a lot of attention from nationwide news agencies. helicopters circled and as many as 50 television satellite trucks attended to observe the recovery. By January 2000, the university has spent out nearly $300,000 on disaster related costs, including assisting with funerals, transport of students to said funerals, and paying the expense of the investigators, which we will come to the investigation in a short while. The future of the bonfire over the following years would be uncertain with different ideas for a smaller stack or even hiring an external construction company, but by 2002, the tradition was cancelled due to spiraling insurance costs. Talking about insurance, the disaster garnered multiple lawsuits against the university and the individual Red Pots who planned and ran the bonfire construction. This would result in a settlement from the Red Pots insurance of around $4 million and the university would settle in 2008 for $2.1 million. But why did the bonfire collapse? Well, that is where the investigation comes into our story. The investigation, the president of the&m university appointed a fiveperson investigation panel. This factf finding body would dig into the root cause of the collapse via interviews, previous years bonfire analysis, site visits, and even computer modeling. Thousands of pages of documents and photographs were released to the investigation board. And unfortunately, in some of the photographs taken during the construction, open and empty alcohol containers were visible. This led to accusations of intoxication. It was backed up by autopsy results of two of the victims having blood alcohol levels above the Texas drink drive limit. It was found that the bonfire once completed would have been over the 55 ft tall limit set by the university. However, this rule wasn't really very well enforced over the years. A survey of the site found that the polo grounds had a small 1% slope from northwest to southeast. Thus, the first stack was built perpendicular to the ground. However, subsequent stacks were built perpendicular to the forces of gravity, which had a potential to increase forces on the southeastern side. Interestingly, this was the exact side that failed. But the investigation found it wasn't just a slope, but a collage of structural issues. It was also found that on the southeastern corner, students had overbuilt on stack 2. that is stack extra logs beyond what was needed to support the next stack, pushing weight closer to the edge of the first stack. For the 1998 and 1999 year photos, it was indicated that more logs were stacked vertically rather than diagonally, moving further away from the tepee look. This increased a thing called wedging, where upper levels push into the lower levels. The wedge connections between floors was semi-intentional as it enabled the upper floors to interconnect better, but it was found the timber in the 1999 season was less straight than previous years. This caused greater gaps which allowed upper stack logs to push further into the lower stacks. In turn, this increased hoop stresses, putting more stress on the lower stacks pushing outwards. Hoop stress is a force on a cylindrical object pushing outwards from the weight within. Much like a wooden barrel and its metal bands holding the whole thing together. All this extra stress put more strain on the wires that were used to hold the logs together. These were the only point of hoop strength for the bonfire, which was found during the investigation to have been in many cases less than adequately installed. So basically once those wires were overloaded and broke, nothing was stopping the upper stacks from pushing the lower stacks apart. This happened in the overloaded and sloped southeastern side of the bonfire. The shifting load overloaded and snapped the guy ropes on the northwestern side even though it momentarily stopped the center pole from falling. The official report by the university would conclude. In summary, the bonfire collapse was the result of complex interactions among several causal factors. It's clear that the collapse was due to the lack of proper structural planning and construction. All of which should have evolved along with the ever greater bonfires. Although officially cancelled in 2002, the bonfire would carry on off campus in an unofficial way known as the students bonfire. So, it's scale time. It's going to be a free and this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a plentiful production. All videos on the channel are creative common attribution share like licensed plentiful videos produced by me John in a currently cold corner of southern London UK. And all I have to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music. Can you play us out please? [music] >> [music] [music] >> This is the aftermath of political interference. The island of Cyprus has experienced a massive disaster. A major power station is in ruins and a military base has been destroyed. But it's not for the reason you might think. The base hasn't been attacked in some border dispute or power grab and the political jiggling around the disaster wasn't instigated by Cyprus at all. Really, it has been caught up in a civil war in another country. Well, kind of. All for just storing some confiscated cargo. But it's not a shipment of cheap plastic trinkets from Teeu. Instead, it's gunpowder and artillery shells from Iran, apparently meant to be shipped to Syria. The year is 2011, and the destruction we are seeing is from one of the largest non-uclear explosions of the 21st century up until that point. The explosion would only be eclipsed by the infamous Barut explosion just a few years later. Today we're looking at the Evangelos Floracus Naval Base Explosion. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos, and also ad free access to the channel's videos, VidCan from just £1 per month. And as always, the link will be in the pinned comment below. The base. This is the Evangelos Floracus Naval Base. The base is well based near Ziggi along the southern coast of Cyprus. It is one of the main compounds for the Criate Navy. Originally called the Mari Naval Base, it was renamed to honor the head of the Criate National Guard, Evangelos Floracis, after dying in a helicopter crash in 2002. Next door to the base is the Basi LOS power station. It's a gas, heavy oil, and cold fired power plant. It is the home of the second tallest structure on the island, and it is the country's newest power plant. It produces around half of the Republic of Cypress's electricity as stated in ICME. It lies immediately to the west of uh Basicos Desolation and power plant that supplies about half the power for the island country. Needless to say, it is rather important for the country's economy. Now, the base offers a good spot for storing things you don't want just anyone getting their hands on, like maybe explosive material, for example. Confiscated cargo. This is the MV Monchos. It was an SA15 type icebreaking cargo ship. The vessel since its construction had very close ties to Russia. Ben also as the Soviet Union when first registered in 1983. After being registered to Russia after the fall of the Iron Curtain, she would end up being registered in Limol in Cyprus from 1993. Ownership transferred to NB shipping, a subsidiary of MSCO, also a Russian company, and was used far away from its originally intended icy waters. In January 2009, the MV Montigos departed Iran on route for the Sewish Canal. Upon reaching the canal, she was forced into an Egyptian port where she was searched where weapons were found, but the ship was released as it wasn't 100% known if the munitions had failed UN resolution 1747. This was the banning of shipping of weapons from Iran. She was apprehended by the US Navy later on in the Red Sea and her weapons cargo was discovered inside shipping containers. The US deemed that the cargo was in fact contravening UN 1742. She was ordered back to Limmerol her porter registry. Upon there a full detailed search would be undertaken. When at Limmerol the full extent of the banned goods would be found. In total, 98 containers of gunpowder, artillery shells, and other weapons paraphernalia. Responsibility for the dangerous goods fell into the lap of the Criate government and by extension the country's navy. It was offloaded and moved for storage off the port to Evangelicos Floracus Naval Base. The containers were stacked free high at the northeast corner of the site, roughly 400 m from the nearby power station and the main buildings of the naval base. And there it would sit for over 2 years out in the open and exposed to the elements and the hot sun. The disaster. It is the evening of the 4th of July 2011 and staff on the naval base have noticed something rather odd. The pile of shipping containers has one on top of the southeast corner bulging. The peculiar goings on was reported to the base commander the next morning who then arranged a meeting with the Ministry of Defense after which an inspection of the containers was undertaken as noted again by ICME. On the 7th of July 2011, the chief expert prepared a safety report with recommendations including the destruction of the explosives. The following day, the pile was dowsted with water pumped from a nearby fire truck. Over the 8th, firefighters, police, and conscripts doused the containers, which had an estimated 500 tons of explosives within. In the early hours of the 11th of July, flashes could be observed in the dark sky. Flames erupted from the containers, and this was just after 3:00 a.m. An alarm was raised on the base. Navy personnel started battling the fire, but to no avail. The call was then put out to the local emergency services. Firefighters were scrambled to the storage site to try and fight the flames. Two engines and six firefighters attended the fire at 4:27 in the morning and began assisting the Navy personnel. At 5:55 in the morning, a massive explosion blew out of the container stack, showering steel all over the surrounding area. It would later be estimated to be an explosion with a yield of 0.48 48 kilotons, measuring a seismic moment of three. A massive shock wave hit out into the nearby power station, knocking it offline. Houses also nearby were hit with the shock wave and debris, causing substantial damage. The initial explosion killed 12 people instantly with 60 more injured. Among the dead were the captain of the navy and commander of the Amangelicos Floracus Naval Base. The damage to the nearby power station would require rolling blackouts across Cyprus. In total, 150 properties were damaged, costing millions in euro in repairs. The explosion caused a massive crater where the storage containers had once sat. The injured were taken to hospitals for medical treatment across the island where one more person would sadly die. This brought the final death toll to 13. The aftermath. The economic effects of the explosion were wide reaching. Much of the south of the island had to deal with rolling blackouts and power shortages. This necessitated sourcing generators from all across the Mediterranean. With Greece providing shipping containerbased generators on top of the damage to the Vasilicos power station, a large amount of fuel had been damaged, further adding to the financial hit. A deal was struck with North Cyprus to also supply power. It wouldn't be until 2013 that the power station would be brought back to generating electricity, costing $992 million US in repairs. The explosion had an estimated cost of $2.83 billion to the criate economy. The cause of the fire that started the explosion will be probed by a one-member research committee. This was led by one of the country's leading lawyers. The immediate cause released in their report was put down to self ignition due to materials being left out in the open and exposed in the hot sun. As noted in risk.co.uk, the method of storing the material was contrary to any rules for storage of ammunition and/or explosives and was wholly inadequate. They were not isolated from the sun and were piled on top of each other. Throughout the month of July, temperatures steadily rose, hitting a peak of 32° centigrade [music] before the explosion. There was also another theory that was posed around the same time that the ignition was from a local bushfire. However, this hasn't been confirmed. Eventually, the munitions had deteriorated over the 2 years and had become unstable. Clearly, they weren't happy as the deformed storage container first discovered on the 5th of July clearly hints at. But finding out the exact cause is unfortunately very difficult as samples of the debris that were taken, which were intended to be sent to Greece for testing, were not ever actually sent. But why did the munitions stay on site for over 2 years? Political issues meant that the site wasn't cleared because the weapons were reportedly headed for Syria, which was at the time in a full swing civil war. Cyprus was apprehensive to do anything with the goods. As such, offers from the UK, EU, and US to dispose of the arms were refused by the Criate government. The Navy was not inexperienced in munition storage as well. They had their own weapons and thus had correct handling procedures. [music] But for this particular scenario, it would seem the Navy was very unprepared. You would think the [music] acquisition of the cargo would have triggered a risk assessment and an emergency plan, but it didn't. All the time it just sat there. It was increasing its risk of self-detonation. It was found during the investigation that multiple concerns were raised about the poor storage conditions, but officials only really cared about its security rather than safety to those around it. All of this came out during investigations and as such the disaster had a terrible political fallout. This would result in multiple resignations and even some criminal convictions. Marcus Krypanio, the Criate Foreign Minister and Criate Defensement Minister Costas Papicostas and the National Guard Commander-in-Chief General Petros Talidis resigned over the explosion. Criate President Demetrius Christophus was pointed for blame in the investigation report. Of course, Christophas rejected results. He would continue on in his post until 2013. Although the president was immune to criminal prosecution, the government as a whole would be found criminally negligent in 2016. But a few years earlier in 2013, four officials including defense minister Costas would be found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 5 years with the other three being given 2 years respectively. So it's time for my scale. [music] It's going to be a three. And this is what I've got for my disaster card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a plane for production. All videos on the channel creative comments actuation share like licensed playing diffult videos produced by me John in a currently wet and windy corner of southern London UK. And all I have to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music can you play us out please? >> [music] [music] >> It is the morning of the 16th of November, 2010, and hundreds of people are scouring through the wreckage of a residential building. The evening before, the entire five-story structure failed without warning, suddenly taking with it many people. The area that is being searched for survivors is Alita Park in New Delhi, India. As rescue workers pull away the debris, it becomes very clear that the building was home to squalid residential conditions. [music] Whereas many people as possible had been crammed into a relatively small building. Being only five stories tall, the building has an estimated 40 dwellings within its footprint. The disaster, although shocking, would show that there were many other properties within the country's capital that were completely unfit for human habitation. And of course, like most things, it ended up boiling down to neglect and [music] greed. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. Today we're looking at the Lolita Park building collapse. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my YouTube, Patreon, and Kofi members. If you like early access to videos and add free access to the videos, then you can from just £1 per month. As always, the details will be in the pinned comment below. I found during my research for this video a lot of conflicting information between various different news agencies. So I've based the video's facts and figures on the report investigation of a building collapse in Delhi by Chandang Gosh. He undertook a forensic evaluation of the building post collapse. As always, I will put the link to the report in the pinned comment under the sources section. The building, our story goes back to 1988 and the construction of a one-story building on a narrow slip of land near Lolita Park, Laxmi Nagir, East Delhi. The footprint for the structure was fairly small at just 4.6 m wide with a depth of 18.3 m. The smallest footprint was adequate enough for a one-story property. The building did however have a 3 m deep basement. The whole area fell under a flood plane, but water ingress protection was not considered at the time, leaving the building's foundations vulnerable. But again, only being a one-story building, undermined footings were kind of less of a concern. It was still an inadequate structure. However, the building's owners wanted to extend and with the current structure taking up the whole plot of land, the only direction they decided was up. Of course, the local authority were not informed and none of the construction codes were followed, which was set out by the city. I mean, this is a plainly difficult video subject after all. Anyh who, over the early 1990s, the building was built up to three stories tall. It had a brick outer wall supported by 12 concrete reinforced columns. As the structure rose above the first floor, it projected beyond its footprint in a cantal lever section nearly 50% of its width to the west. Built on top of the first projection were brick floating walls. By 2005, the building was up to its fifth story, making it four times taller than its original structure, which was now at a height of 20.5 m, which interestingly was also four times the width of the plot of land, not including the 50% overhang. Needless to say, the building would be considered by pretty much anyone looking at it as not very well balanced. Reportedly, there were 40 rooms within the building which housed over 200 people as stated by Chandang Gosh, professor and head of the National Institute of Disaster Management. To such building, existing building bylaws, development control rules, land use policy and master plan, etc. cannot be complied with. To divide up the rooms, thin brick walls were employed and wiring for electrical and plumbing for sewage and fresh water was not very well planned out. Breaking randomly through floorboards, walls, and even supporting joists. The side effect of this was basically turning the building into one big giant piece of Swiss cheese with the same sort of structural integrity that goes along with it. And on top of all this, to add the heavy cherry to the dodgy cake, there was a 15,000 L water tank balanced on top of the whole building. The large numbers of rooms with very few amenities and thus lower rent attracted migrant workers from different parts of the country. Rent was reported by the BBC as 300 rupees, roughly £420 in 2010 a month in comparison to the 100 rupees per 12 to 13 hours working day some laborers can earn for that said very dangerous backbreaking work. The basement at some point prior to 2010 had been converted into a sweat shop with multiple sewing machines chattering away during the working hours. Crammed in with no attention given to fire building and earthquake codes, the building offered little in the way of quick escape in the event of a disaster. Which sadly leads us onto the disaster. It is the evening of Monday the 15th of November 2010 and mostly everything seems normal around the narrow streets of Laxmi Nair. Residents in the five-story building near Lolita Park are settling in for the night at around 8:15 p.m. And without any real warning, the building collapsed and toppled over towards the west side as noted by the BBC. Witnesses described the block crumbling like a pack of cards or as if it had been made of sand. It is not known how many people were actually inside the building at the time of the collapse. Parts of the concrete structure facade and bricks toppled into the empty space next to the building's foundations. As soon as the collapse occurred, passers by began helping the injured and started clearing away debris. As more and more people assisted, pieces of the building were moved off site by using a human chain. Rescue workers were hampered in reaching the site by the narrow streets around the building, meaning that the first paramedics and firefighters didn't reach [music] the stricken building until at least 45 minutes after its collapse. Heavy equipment would eventually reach the building. This included bulldozers and jackhammers, but a large proportion of the recovery works was performed all by hand with just mere hammers and chisels, removing material one piece at a time. As the hours passed by, more and more bodies were pulled from the pile, raising the death toll. While the 16th, the next day, news agencies reported at least 61 dead and scores more injured. Immediately after the collapse, Amarit Pal Singh, the building's owner, fled. He would be apprehended the next day and charged with culpable homicide. During the rescue efforts, injured survivors were whisked away by Rick Shaw to hospitals. In total, it was estimated around 150 people would attend hospital with varying injuries up to and including loss of limbs. It would take roughly 5 days before all the debris had been sorted through. After the first day, the Delhi government promised a payment of 200,000 rupees to bereieved families. By the end of the rescue efforts, the final death toll was estimated at 67, although it has also been reported as up to 70. The number isn't really 100% due to the transient nature nature of the migrant workers that live within and the lack of proper registration of residents. Multiple buildings in the area were evacuated due to water ingress and improper construction which is good being kind of proactive but much of displaced people were just dumped out into the streets with many having to live in tents. The aftermath. Understandably, the cause was a concern to all involved. A research commission was set up chaired by Justice Lakshwa Prasad. Multiple reports were submitted to the commission, one of which was a forensic examination into the building's remains. The columns and footings for the building were excavated in a form of building autopsy. Investigation headed by Chanden Gosh found that the vital 12 support reinforced columns were substandard in size. They were also found to be placed at not the best points in the building for structural integrity. Instead, just following the external walls. It was found that column number 10 was the likely source of failure. It was calculated that the load it needed to carry was some 108 tons. And this would require the column to be at least 3 m wide by 3 m deep. Instead, it was actually found to be about 130th of the required square m size. It was only calculated to have a capable loadbearing capacity of roughly 5 tons. In addition to this, it was found that some of the concrete columns and beams had been overreinforced with steel rebar. This means that when it fails, it gives no prior warning. In comparison, under reinforced concrete fails at a much slower rate, giving people more of an opportunity to see that the concrete is failing. And even worse, talking about the rebar above the third floor, the concrete beams had no reinforcement at all as seen during the forensic examination of the wreckage. But although severely overloaded, it had survived some 15 years post extension beyond the ground floor. Something below the columns was also a concern. You see, the building was built on a flood plane and the ground was a sandy silty type material and it is very susceptible to water logging. Inspections of the basement found no hardcore material or concrete underneath the loose brick floors and even loose silty sand mud was discovered as well as other evidence of water ingress. After interviewing survivors and workers from the sweat shop, it was found that the basement was quite frequently flooded, requiring pumping out on occasion. Although there's no evidence to show that pumping out had occurred close to the collapse. The collapse failure was thus a waterlogged ground that had undermined column 10 which after having exceeded its load strength failed suddenly collapsing the entire building around it. Basically there was nothing else supporting it. But like a lot of these types of incidents, the building failing is the tip of the disaster iceberg. It's more of a legislative issue or more to the point enforcing the rules of building construction. The commission set up to investigate the collapse pointed the finger of blame at the MCD or the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and the Delhi Development Authority for not detecting that the building was illegal. saying, "Even if one department had done its duty by being vigilant and bringing the real facts to the four, the unfortunate building would not have been constructed in such a haphazard manner. Basically, the building was poorly built and was allowed to by the negligence of the local authorities. So, it's scale time. It's going to be a five." And this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a plain diffult production. All videos on the channel are creative commons attribution share like licensed playing difficult videos produced by me John in a currently quite miserable cold corner of southern London UK. And all we said today is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music play us out please. [music] >> [music] [music] >> It's 9:00 a.m. on the morning of the 23rd of April 1988 and a small crowd has assembled outside a new supermarket. The new shop is a 90,000 square ft building reportedly costing in the region of 5 million Canadian dollars to build. Now, the first customers of the shiny new shop were instructed to park on the building's rooftop car park. Most of the customers are senior citizens attracted to the store for its opening day discounts. As the small ceremony is complete and the wacky shopping car race begins, the store fills up with its customers. But just 15 minutes after the opening, the building's roof collapsed. The disaster would gain the nickname Cave on Foods, a play on the supermarket chain's name, Save on Foods. Today, we're looking at the Market Square collapse. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my YouTube Patreon and Kofhei members. If you like early access and add free access to the videos on this channel, you can from just £1 a month. As always, the details will be in the pinned comment below. Station Square. This is Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. It is a city that by the time of our disaster in the late 1980s had a population of around 150,000 people. During the early 1980s, plans for a metro system in the wider Vancouver area led to the Sky Train project. This aimed to hook up Vancouver's closest neighboring cities, one of which was, well, you guessed it, Burnaby. Like a lot of rapid transit projects, the train stations become economic hotspots. [music] In Bernaby's case, this was the city's main train station on the network called Metro Town. Seeing this potential economic hotspot in the making, a number of retail areas were planned as part of the development of the Metro Town area. Initially in 1986, the Metro Town Center named Metropolis was opened followed by the smaller station Square, which is the main focus for our video today. So the land that was to be Station Square was reszoned in 1985 under the 100 million Canadian project. The project was funded by an investment firm and penned by an architectural firm. In 1986, the original developer sold on the project to another partnership of developers. The deal retained the original architectural company, but left the plans relatively the same. On the whole, the whole development was to be mixed used with retail outlets, a hotel, a theater, and residential units. One of the retail units that was to be taken up was to be the flagship store for the Canadian supermarket chain Save on Food. The Save on Foods building was a singlestory steel structure. Now, the architectural firm also doubled up as a project coordinator. Part of this role was to work on behalf of the developer to find contractors for the structural, electrical, and mechanical engineering sides of the project. A tender was put out and after eight bids, the third lowest firm was selected for the structural work. At around the same time, the construction company was hired who then subcontracted out the steel supply and erection work, who then themselves subcontracted the fabrication to another company who designed the web steel joists. still following me? Well, at some point during these tenders and subbing out, a suggestion came about making use of the roof of the supermarket for parking. Great idea. And after checking between the engineer and architects, it seemed like the addition would be doable. Thus, the development gained 235 parking spaces on its roof. A plan was laid out to provide a surface for cars parked on the roof. A 3-in thick wearing surface was employed. This was concrete with chopped glass and fiber reinforcement to prevent surface cracks. In the center was a 6-in high around 5t wide walkway for customers to make their way from their cars to a travelator down to the store. Below the top layer was 4 in of light styrofoam insulation. Under the walkway, which was increased to 10 in in thickness. Below this was a waterproof membrane which was applied to the top of the composite corrugated steel concrete structural deck with a concrete layer of 2 and 1/2 in. This deck was supported by the roof beams which were then themselves held up by steel columns in a mixture of both cantal lever and suspended sections. There was lateral support spread out among the structure but not every beam received some support. During the construction phase, it was deemed that the walkway was too narrow and an additional 3 ft each side was added, but instead of having insulation foam, it was just extended with concrete. This added another £24,000 in weight, but no one really thought to check it or query the extra weight. The designer, who was a traininee engineer, thought little of raising the issue, and on top of that, none of the qualified engineers thought to doublech checkck the trainee work. Now during the project multiple revisions to the design was made with revised calculations of the loads that the structure would be subjected to. There would be four revised calculations for loads. However, during the different designs, some of the building's beams were reduced in size from W24x104 to W24 * 76. As the design requirements reduced, the amount of deflection the beam would be able to endure was reduced. Now, as the building came together, an issue came around and this was the beam deflection of 2 in causing issues with the travelator housing. The building owners, understandably concerned, requested a review of the problem and requested a fix. Remediation work would require strengthening some beams and extra columns were installed. The building's owners decided a second opinion was needed and they hired another engineering firm to give a report. But in a little nice bit of luck, a certificate was produced by the mill showing samples of the steelwork to exceed the design expectations at over £55,000 per square in. In comparison, design requirements were £44,000 per square in. With this in hand, the owners and tenants of the building were happy to carry on with the project and set about the opening day for the Savon food store to be the 23rd of April, 1988. The disaster. It is close to the grand opening of the Savon food store at Station Square. It is the 23rd of April 1988 and the some 90,000 square ft store is ready for some hot pensioner retail action. Many customers have parked on the spanking new car park on the building's roof, filling up many of the parking rows. When the doors opened and the swarm of the elderly patrons spread out, the number at the 9:00 a.m. opening time was estimated to be around 600 customers and 370 members of staff. Just minutes after the opening, staff started to hear cracking and banging noises from the building's roof right underneath the parking area. Announcements were made over the Tano system for customers to make their way to the exit. Many heeded the warning and began slowly shuffling towards the checkouts. An amateur photographer by the name of Trevor Bucket was right underneath the twisting beam. He managed to capture this striking photo just before disaster. Creaking and grinding sounds continued from the roof. It then sagged and caved in. Cars, debris, and rain all came into the once dry and calm produce area. Only a few were injured with a store clerk suffering a crushed pelvis from being pinned under some concrete and steel debris. [music] after other customers were knocked down suffering broken bones. As emergency services attended, it became quite apparent that amazingly it seemed that no one had been killed in the collapse. 21 would be injured requiring hospital treatment, but unbelievably all the lives within the store survived. Just look at the collapse and see how lucky everyone was. The 6,400 ft cave area brought down 20 cars with it, writing them off. This would result, unsurprisingly, in multiple lawsuits between the involved parties, and after being rebuilt, the store was opened a year later. The complex would be knocked down in 2013 to make way for a new building, apartment blocks, and a supermarket with half the square footage. But Savon Foods from the disaster gained a humorous but kind of unfair nickname. This was Cavon Foods. The company had no part in the design or the build of the project. They are only really the tenant, but they got quite a bit of the bad press. It was rather unfortunate for the company as you know customers nearly being crushed in the produce aisle probably doesn't help to sell fruit and veg. The investigation now the investigation would be conducted by the commission which was held by a commission which was held over 10 days of hearings between May and July 1988. 47 witnesses gave sworn evidence as to how the building was designed and built. Inspections of the building showed a [music] bent beam where it had twisted from the vertical to the horizontal. This was on a cantally lever section of the roof beams. The failure was relatively slow over a period of 4.5 minutes as it twisted and became dislodged from the column, thus causing the section to collapse as seen in this shocking photograph. Inspections of the beam showed it to be smaller than what it should have been installed for a building of this type. The plans were poured over and when compared to what was built, issues were rather clear to see. The investigation found that the beams had been downsized. But why? Well, even a report that was released by the province of British Columbia in August 1988 couldn't really explain it. As stated in the report, for some reason, fully not known, the beam was changed from W24* 104 to W24* 76, a beam too small, even if laterally supported. It was found that the reduced beam size came around after the seventh revision of the building's drawings, where it must have been incorrectly reduced. This error was not picked up upon and subsequent revisions only required a check of the revisions, not the plan as a whole. Thus, an unidentified revision could easily be missed. But even though the beam was built and installed to the incorrect size, it was actually noticed before the collapse. BCed the developer and the tenant had raised issues with the beam size which triggered a third party to be involved in inspecting and developing a remediation plan. But after another engineer looked at the beam, the vital mill certificate was produced from the steel manufacturers which was used to show that the beam had the required strength for [music] the intended load. But there was a big problem with the mill tests. You see the mill test was done on a sample cut from the web beam of a W shape. The web usually has a higher test strength than the flange and the test doesn't account for variation in strength from chemical composition variance or temperature variance during the rolling process. Thus, a test can't really be relied upon. Instead, it is just a general indication of beam strength. Definitely not enough to base the need for remediation works or not on as the tests only look at a small number of samples of the steel production run. The vital error was that none of the professionals involved acted on the undersized beam and [music] changed it either during design, fabrication or installation. The widened concrete walkway on the roof added to the stress of the failed beam. Estimated it added a weight increase of 250%. All of these issues were missed at every review even by the third party engineers. As such, when the official report was published in August 1988, the finger for blame was firmly placed at the professionals and concluded. The investigation carried out the commission raised several tributary issues that will concern people who are involved in the construction industry. The need for greater care by all parties in communicating special and unusual requirements to suppliers and designers is of vital importance on all building projects. The fee for the original designers was also brought into criticism. It was $17,000 on a $5.4 million total construction cost. This was lower than what it should have been, bringing in the accusation that the designers Tammy Tacy and Associates were just rushing through their job, which was likely as the whole construction was started even whilst the ink was still wet on the plans. Now the accusation in the investigation will result in a professional backlash against Tamtacy and Associates and the third party engineers MSS Engineering Structural Limited. This would result in four engineers at the two companies being found guilty of incompetence, negligence, and professional misconduct by the panel of the Professional Engineering Governing body. So that's my video on the Cave-In Foods disaster. It's going to be a one on the scale as luckily no one died. And this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a plain default production. All videos on the channel creative common attribution share light licensed. Playful videos are produced by me, John, and the currently mild corner of southern London, UK. And all I have to say is thank you very much for watching. And Mr. Music, can you play us out please? [music] >> [music] [music] >> Right. So, this week's video, I've just got to say I probably won't be doing comments for a little while after the video goes live because at 200 p.m. today, I am actually getting married. As such, I will not be on my phone checking comments and I'll be getting married to my partner. Mrs. Plainly Difficult. Anyway, with enough that being said, let's get on with the video. This picture looks rather unassuming. The two men in the foreground are looking at what looks like a room of metal drums. The year is 1983, and these two men are observing a room full of deadly radioactive waste. This waste is the result of tons of contaminated water leaking out into the environment, of which it's still being cleaned up today. These two men are most likely Russian as where this photograph was taken was in the Andover Bay nuclear waste facility in the Soviet Union. Welcome to Play Difficult. Today we're looking at the Andre Bay nuclear disaster. Today's video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos, then you can from just one pound per month. And as always, the information will be in the pinned comment below. >> [music] >> Okay, so before we start, I need to say that this video is based very heavily on the important publications by the Bologona organization that investigated the disaster and its breakout report published in 1995. There will also be some information from the IAEA and other sources in this video. And as always, all these links will be in the pinned comment. Andrew Bay, it is probably hardly a surprise if I was to tell you that the Soviet Union went in hard during the atomic age as the East and West faced off against one another. During the 1950s, as it developed its nuclear power industry, the Soviet Union developed a number of nuclearpowered submarine concepts. The concept of a nuclearpowered submarine is very attractive to a navy as it offers an almost unlimited range and endurance over its diesel-powered counterparts, mainly due not needing to surface to recharge its batteries from the pesky old combustion engine. But I digress. The Soviet Union would in 1956 start testing its first nuclear propulsion reactor, which would lead to its very first service submarine, the November class. In 1958, the Soviet nuclear Navy would expand over the following years. But no matter how advanced the fleet propulsion system may be, like everything, its success would be closely linked [music] to its important maintenance programs. This was to be undertaken at Zapernana Listister Naval Base in northern Russia on its Lola Peninsula. The first part of the base was built, interestingly, by the Nazis in 1939 as part of the short-lived pack between the Nazis and Soviet Union. The area wouldn't see much develop until the 1950s with the advent of the Soviet Union's nuclear submarine program. The naval base has four main areas, and I'm really going to butcher the pronunciation of the names here. The Malaya, Lacta, Andrea Bay, Bulchella, Leakka, and Lichia. These areas were built up in the late 1950s and early 1960s. At the time, the nuclear fleet was developing much faster than the facilities required to maintain it. Construction was mainly done by untrained conscripts with little design or concern regarding personnel safety or environmental protection. The work was shoddy and substandard and it ran all the way through from barracks to nuclear handling facilities. Works were often rushed by their commanding officers who didn't want to fall foul and have a careerhortening incident. The Andrev Bay facilities were brought into operation between 1961 and 1963 and was tasked with storing the waste nuclear fuel from the growing submarine nuclear fleet. Interestingly, unlike the other three areas, Androv Bay didn't actually have any submarines based there. Instead, it is the Northern Fleet's largest nuclear waste and spent fuel depository. In the Soviet submarine fleet, fuel is replaced roughly between 2 to 10 years, depending on requirements. As the fleet matured, issues would be seen in fuel assemblies cracking, requiring more frequent replacement. Refueling generated significant amounts of spicy material both in fuel assemblies, liquid and particular nuclear waste. And in some submarine types, it would even require cutting out a section of the submarine hole to access the nuclear reactor for refueling, which also increase the chances of environmental contamination. In the early years of the fleet, refueling was done in dry dock, but this would change to being done while still afloat, albeit in docking facilities. This again increased the general chance of radioactive contamination for the environment. But again, no one was really concerned about that. Now, the Andrew Bay facility covers an area of 2 hectares and is serviced from both road and sea. Specialized carrier ships delivered a waste material via its two peers. In addition to the pier, the site has multiple buildings, all pretty shoddly built. As I mentioned earlier before, one important structure was called building number five. This contained the two spent fuel storage pools. It was opened in 1961 and expanded in the early 1970s. The building had a loading area with a crane for road delivered waste. It was constructed of concrete and the pools were rectangular and the inward walls were lined with steel plates. Each pool is 60 m long, 3 m wide, and 6 m deep with a total volume of around 1,400 cub m, weighing 1,400 tons. The entire building itself is 70 m long and 18 m high. The spent fuel is meant to be fully submerged in water, which is purified and monitored from separate buildings. Building 5 was designed to hold 2,000 spent fuel casks, but over the years the gaps between the casks were reduced, and this allowed roughly 2,500 casts to be stored. They were suspended in the pool with geometrically placed chains that stop the risk of them toppling and to keep a safe distance from one another as to not cause a criticality event. But this method of storage was very susceptible to the casks falling to the bottom of the pool. The plan with the casks was for the fuel to eventually go to Mak for reprocessing, thus making Androof Bay a holding site of sorts. Now, the casks were made of steel and weighed roughly 350 kg with capacity to hold either five or seven fuel assemblies, but they were not designed to stop gamma radiation completely, hence needing to be submerged in water. The casks when filled with spent fuel are also then filled with water themselves and this was to aid in heat distribution. The water within the casks was not intended to mix with the water within the pools. The water within the casks was to be removed at Andro Bay before shipping to Mak. So maintenance, criticality, controls and contamination prevention was all pretty awful. Bandruff Bay. By the 1980s, after its early 1970s expansion, building 5 was looking pretty neglected. Security was limited to just some broken fencing and a couple of guards, and the building itself was falling apart. Reportedly, the sky could be seen through the cracks in the roof, and multiple areas of the building were heavily contaminated. Which leads us onto 1982 and one big old nuclear waste disaster. 1982. All of the following information about the disaster came out 10 years after the event when it was leaked via, excuse the pun, the loner. It is February 1982 and staff at building 5 have noticed something slightly odd. The water in the right hand pool was lower than usual. Normally, it should have a 4 m depth to the top of the casks, but today it's lower. This was indicating that there was a leak. The base chief of staff had a brilliant idea for stopping the seeping [music] water. How about pouring in some flour? Yes, that's right. He ordered flour, the stuff he used to make bread, to be poured into the pool, which would hopefully clog up any leak. 20 bags worth would be emptied out into the water. And did it work? No, of course it didn't. The leak continued. Maintenance staff noticed ice forming on the outside wall right by the right hand side pool. Interestingly, the ice being made by the cold February air was being fed by the leak. So, they knew roughly where the leak was and concluded that the metal cladding in the pool must have failed. However, finding the exact location of the leak and repairing it would require diving into the pool to conduct a survey and of course do the remediation works. But this clearly was not an option as it would have been a death sentence for anyone who would have done it. The league continued on spilling radioactive water into the surrounding environment. Water had to be kept on added as you know allowing the cast to be exposed would be unpreferable. Fast forward to April 1982 and a leak increased from a dribble to a more noticeable flow rate of 150 L per day. The levels of background radiation was at 1.5 Ronkins per hour and testing of water runoff from a nearby brook and the building's basement showed elevated radiation levels. The next plan was to fill the basement with concrete but again the flow of water continued. [music] This was in August 1982. In September the loss rate of water had gone to 30 tons per day flowing out into the area around the building. It was becoming ever more difficult to maintain water levels, thus threatened the cask's cooling ability and increased the chance of contamination of the wider bay area. A plan was posited to create a protective cover for the right-hand pool made of concrete, iron, and lead in an effort to try and stop the potentially catastrophic release of gamma radiation. On the 5th of October 1982, the plan was approved by the Northern Fleet Commander. In addition to the cover, water purification systems would be sorted out and a lefthand pool would be emptied completely of its fuel casks. A new liquid storage tank would also be built for this project. On top of that, the site around building 5 would be extensively decontaminated. In November, the work to build the cover began. Thousands of tons of iron, concrete, and lead slabs were placed over the tank. But things would take a turn. The at the time not leaking left tank began to do just guess what? It began to leak. It was dumping water at a rate of 10 tons per day. The sudden leak was thought to have been caused by the extensive building works over the right-hand pool disturbing the fragile lining. In December, the building was showing signs of distress with the added weight from the shielding. All of the water had escaped into the local waterboard out of the right-hand pool and the left pool was still leaking, albeit now at a lower rate of three tons per day. They continued to pump water into left hand pool and covered some of it with shielding material. A year after the initial leak, the Navy decided to cease storage at building 5 and thus the next stage of emptying the left pool began. This would prove to be tricky. Over 20 casks over the years had fallen off its chain supports and had landed in awkward unreoverable positions lying on the pool floor. This had allowed fuel assemblies to fall out. The original as designed method of cask removal by crane was not viable and thus they were just left there. As the retrievable casks were removed, they were from June 1983 stored at a repurposed concrete underground chamber for dry waste storage. However, not all the casks were intact, thus creating another radiological issue. Part of the creation of the dry tanks required breaking the previously installed concrete tops. This allowed rain water to fall into the tank and as the casks were placed in the dry tanks, they pushed the water out, which after some time had come into contact with the broken casks, thus pushing more radioactive material out into the atmosphere. Plus, the process of retrofitting the tanks to dryway storage didn't actually involve any shielding at the base, thus allowing this radioactive material to dissipate into the ground. Any loose material was shoveled into the dry tanks, which caused localized small criticality events with cherinov glows being a common sight. Metal shields were used to protect workers loading casks into the dry storage. Over the next six years, the casks out of the left pool were removed with some stored at the dry storage site and others being sent to Mak for disposal. The remaining contaminated water in the left pool was drained into a nearby water storage tank. All whilst the recovery of building five debacle was being undertaken, the Soviet subfleet still needed to be refueled. As such, more spent fuel was being staged at the dry storage tanks, which by the 1990s had numbered three, named 2 A, 2B, and 3A. These free tanks for over a decade were exposed to the elements just being outside, albeit buried. But eventually, a building would be built over the top of them to aid in the cleanup works and to hide them from any prying eyes. The three dry storage tanks had an estimated 22,000 spent nuclear fuel elements inside. This was both from building five and the additional fuel added from the naval fleet. It was thought that over 600,000 tons of contaminated water had escaped into the ecosystem and the Baron Sea. On top of that, it is estimated that six tons of spent fuel is stored in the Andre Bay bay. Interestingly, this is way more than what was in Chernobyl reactor 4, representing a much larger radiological risk when you think about it. Over 1,000 workers were involved in the disaster, and no proper log of exposures was kept, meaning that the human ramifications of their exposure were not really known. the aftermath. So the danger Andrev Bay represents is still very much there. The cleanup operation slipped into gear in 2017 with funds from Canada, Europe, and the Russian government. Spent fuel was removed via a crane which was built into the building covering the dry storage tanks. In 2017, 18 batches of spent fuel were transported away. But as the war started in Ukraine after the Russian invasion, fuel recovery had ground to virtually a halt with only two batches being removed between 2022 and 2023. But winding all the way back to 1982, what caused the right hand pool's initial rupture? Well, officials had a few theories as stated in the Bologna report. One, poor quality of weld seams in the siding. Two, shifts in the rock formation on which the building was erected could have caused the weld seams to crack. And three, drastic water temperature fluctuations that led to weld seams to sustain thermal stress and consequently disintegration. I mean, all three of those probably combined had some play in the disaster. But the common thinking is that the temperature changes was the cause for the weld failures, which is probably likely as the quality of the welds were very poor due to the whole untrained conscripts being used for constructing almost every part of Andre Bay. On top of that, in the early days of building 5, it wasn't temperature managed, meaning the pools would often freeze over in the some -15° centigrade temperatures. The ice was eventually melted using steam, which then remained pumped into the pools. Thus, once the worlds had gone through enough stress cycles of cooling and heating, failure was pretty much inevitable. The Russian Arctic is thought to be one of the most contaminated places on Earth. Well, over 600,000 tons of radioactive water would definitely do that. But on top of that, many submarines were just left in the bay once they became obsolete, with some leaking diesel fuel and others still having their reactors fueled up, exposed to the elements, abandoned and unchecked. The whole Zapadena list naval base area is toxic even to today. So believe me when I say you wouldn't want to go swimming in the icy waters. Now that's my video on the Andre Bay disaster. I've included all the Bologona links in the pin comment for you to all check out as there's so much there much more than I could even imagine to cover on a plainly difficult video. So, it's scale time. As I don't really know the death toll, I don't really know what it's going to be. But, if we're talking about contamination, it's definitely going to be a nine. And this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a plain production. All videos on the channel are creative commas attribution share like licensed playing difficult videos produced by me John in a currently mild corner of southern London UK and all that's left to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music [music] can you do me a favor and play me out please >> [music] >> Take a look at this photograph. It's an interesting scene. Firefighters are setting up some hoses, which seems to be pretty standard operation. There doesn't seem to be too much urgency, at least from what we can glean from this frozen moment in time. The grass around their feet looks dry. It's been hot and it looks like it's been hardened along the exposed sections of the track that have been worn down by vehicles over the years. Look, as I zoom out, there seems to be a cloud in the distance. It's actually smoke. It blotss out the sun, which is causing the orange hue. It's not just any smoke, however, but this is a very visual sign of approaching danger, a massive bushfire. But although not the largest ever experienced, the disaster would be the most deadly with the highest death toll in Australian history. Thus, it was infamous enough to gain the name Black Saturday. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult, and today we're looking at the 2009 Victoria bushfires. Today's video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the videos on the channel, then you can from just £1 per month. As always, the links will be in the pinned comment below. [music] T is the season. This is the southeastern Australian state of Victoria. It's the most densely populated part of the country with around 7 million people calling it home. This puts it in second place for total population. But when compared to in size to the number one spot, New South Wales, you can see why the whole population density thing is much much higher here. Now, Australia is known for everything living on the continent having a murderous intention. From spiders to kangaroos, everything wants you dead. And this even extends to the environment itself. Australia is naturally a very hot country. It's not just the sunburn capital of the world for nothing. I've looked at the temperature as I'm writing the script and it's in the middle of the night over there and they have the same temperature as here in London during the day. So this heat understandably leads to at the hottest times of the year vast grass shrub and forest areas to dry out making them much more susceptible to igniting when presented with a flame. Bush fires are a common part of southeastern Australia. So much so that some plants have even evolved to actually benefit from fires in helping in reproduction. Now the country isn't always on fire. Bushfires tend to follow the climatic seasons. And for Victoria, this is roughly between October and May. It does vary from year to year, however. Bush fires are caused by multiple reasons, both human and natural. On the human side, it's often accidental, but sometimes people make the most of the season for a bit of convenience arson. It's a good way to put in a dodgy insurance claim after having some things burned down. Over the years, there were a few very catastrophic bushfires. For example, Black Friday in 1939 or Red Tuesday in 1898, or the subject for today's video, Black Saturday 2009. The disaster. So, the timeline for this video comes from the extensive Royal Commission that was established and published over multiple volumes after the disaster. And as always, the links will be in the pin comment. Our story begins not on Black Saturday, but a week or so before with the end of January 2009. The souththeast of Australia is experiencing a record-breaking heat wave, which would eventually hit a peak of 48.8° centigrade. [music] But in the leadup to this all-time high, the region was subjected to two weeks of persistent dry conditions. Three consecutive days between the 28th and 30th of January hit over 43° centigrade. Now, I'm going to get out a map for this as multiple fires were blaze in different areas around Victoria. On the 4th of February, a fire began in the Bunip State Park. 2 days later, 123 hectares had burned. Interestingly, the originating area was near a walking trail pointing to a human source. Containment lines were established to try and hen a fire in within the park. But as the heat started to sore, it would jump for defenses. On the Friday, so the 6th of February, over 19,000 firefighting personnel were drafted and posted around some of the anticipated, excuse the pun, hotspots. The Park Fire would bog down fire response teams over the following days, including the fateful Black Saturday. But this was just the tip of the flaming iceberg, an iceberg with multiple burning tips. We are finally here. It is the morning of the 7th of February, Saturday, Black Saturday. At 5 in the morning, the containment lines around the Bunet Park were jumped by the fire, causing firefighters having to retreat. In other areas around the state, more fires would spring up as the morning progressed and the heat rose. Close to lunchtime, the parts of the largest Black Saturday fire would begin. This was in Kilmore East on a hill near the Saunders Road. The area had been experiencing high winds at an estimated 78 mph. The fire would spread quickly over the following hours, spreading 31 mi southeast along a narrow firefront. The winds increasing the inferno's intensity. The burning ravaged into the King Lake National Park and onto the populated area of St. Andrews. Many houses burned at St. Andrews. However, the town center was spared during a change in wind. But the changes would make the firefront wider, pushing it towards King Lake to the northeast. This would cause damage to thousands of properties and take the largest number of lives, estimated to be around 100. Whilst this was burning to the east, another fire broke out at 2:30 p.m. This was at the site of an abandoned timber mill called the Marindi Mill. The fire spread southeast, burning up the Narong route. Moderately populated Mary'sville was looking like it would be saved as the fire was moving alongside it. But the evening changing winds pushed the front towards the town. The winds had pushed the development of fires across a large area. Each time pushing the firefighters back at around the rough same time at 6:00 p.m. as the Mandini fire was reaching Mary'sville, another fire began in Beachworth. The Kilmore fire smoke plume was over 9 mi high as the evening burned into the night. Victims were sent to any nearby medical center with many victims being sent to hospitals across Melbourne. The fires continued to burn into the Sunday. The over 40° centigrade highs had dropped significantly, but the dry ground and brush fueled the flames. The Kilmore and Murandini fires had merged, creating the King Lake complex. By the Sunday afternoon, the Beachworth, King Lake complex, Bunip State Park and Bendingo and a number of other fires were still raging on. Containment lines were made to try and hen in the fires. By Tuesday the 10th, spot fires left by the passing King Lake complex formed another smaller complex, the Marinda or Yara complex. So by the 10th, the following fires were still burning. the Beachworth, King Lake, Bonap State Park, Bendigo, Churchill, and Dargo fires. The largest was still the King Lake complex. During the firefighting efforts, an accurate death toll was very difficult to ascertain. The estimates fluctuated as damage was assessed. People were declared missing and bodies were found. The King Lake complex was stopped at containment lines on Tuesday the 17th of February, 10 days after Black Saturday. The southern flank of the King Lake fire burned southward towards Wbertton. It wouldn't get contained until the 4th of March. Black Sassay had turned into a best part of a monthlong disaster of tiring heat, fires, death, and destruction. When looking at a map, you can see that the fires were worryingly close to Melbourne. And although not threatening the the city proper, if I lived there, I would have been very concerned. All of the fires associated with Black Saturday burned a total area of 450,000 hectares. And even though mostly burning in rural areas, over 3.5,000 structures were destroyed with 2/3 of these being houses. Over 400 would have to be treated in hospital for various injuries such as smoke inhalation, burns, and other escape related injuries such as broken bones, cuts, and bruises. Not to mention the mental toll on survivors and emergency workers for essentially experiencing a fiery nightmare. The death toll estimate rose to around 250 but was later revised down to 173 as forensic testing of remains identified missing persons and after some of the initially reported missing persons were found alive and well. The deadliest fire was the King Lake area with over 120 confirmed dead, followed by Mary'sville area with 39 confirmed dead. 164 of the total death had died in the fire itself, with a few others being related to car crashes whilst trying to escape. Interestingly, the majority of the bodies were found inside their homes, which put the government stay or defend or leave early policy into question. Defenders use the fact that some had died trying to escape as evidence that force evacuations could actually backfire. But let's get on to the next chapter of this video. See what the aftermath of the disaster was all about. The aftermath. Now, Bloody Saturday would raise a lot of reappraising of the way that the state and the wider country dealt with bushfires. The policy of stay and defend or leave early was kept even though many had properly prepared for the bush fires but would still pay the ultimate price. A commission was created to investigate all aspects of the bushfires. It would run for 18 months between February 2009 and July 2010. It would call 434 witnesses, produce 67 recommendations, and cost around 90 million Australians. Another major criticism that arose from the commission was the ineffective of the warning given to the public. As noted in the August 2009 interim report, the methods of delivery of the warnings were also inadequate. Some techniques for raising awareness, such as the use of emergency warning signal to capture people's attention when warnings are broadcast were not used. Similarly, other avenues for issuing and raising awareness of warnings were not encouraged, such as the use of local sirens or the use of commercial radio and television. The commission found that the management of the Saturday the 7th wasn't great with the integrated emergency coordination center being overwhelmed by the afternoon, which apparently ended up missing updates in the Kilmore firefront. But what was the cause of the Black Saturday? Well, this important question would be delved into by the Royal Commission and the causes would be many. However, the main and most deadly fire that originated in Kilmore would be very much in the plainly difficult wheelhouse. It was found that the Kilmore fire had originated on a hill along where the Pentadine power line ran across a gully. It was found that the conductor cable, the power line had failed due to stresses on a helical termination. Now, this is the point where the cable is wrapped around a loop in order to keep tension across the line. The loop has like a groove in it for the cable to run and it allows for some movement of the cable. However, it was found that the cable was not on the loop part instead getting jammed outside the loop and had pinched and after enough movement over time had frayed and snapped. Gravity did its thing and thus the cable fell laying on the ground, breaking the power line's conductor, which then tripped out the line. The power line was equipped with automatic circuit reclosers, which would try and re-energize the power line after it being tripped out. It reclosed three times before the current was stopped by eventually tripping to lockout. But at each re-energized of the power line, plasma at a temperature of around 5,000° was shot out, which started the Kilmore East fire. This would be the most deadly fire on Black Saturday, as stated in the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience. The Black Saturday bushfires unleashed the equivalent of 1,500 Hiroshima atomic bombs on Victoria, generating their own winds of up to 120 km an hour, which snapped trees and created fireballs of exploding gases that surged 600 m in 30 seconds. The energy produced by the fires in just a few hours on February the 7th was enough to provide Victoria's industrial and domestic energy needs for a year. There would be other causes for the other fires which would include arson and another power line failing. However, obviously most of the focus was on the main and most deadly one which was the Kilmore eastire. Now the Royal Commission would publish its report with a total of 67 recommendations and this would revamp a great deal of the state of Victoria's bushfire preparedness. It would quadruple the amount of control burning it would undertake to reduce potential fuel sources of fires. It also recommended electricity infrastructure be upgraded and amongst other things a comprehensive approach to evacuation be implemented. The disaster highlighted a number of areas of risk during bushfire season and it is tragic that over 170 people were a price for the lessons. So this video has barely scratched the surface of the disaster and I highly recommend looking at the Royal Commission reports for all the detailed information. So that's my video on the Black Friday bush fires. is going to be a seven on my disaster scale and this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a plain production. All videos on the channel are creative commission shell like licensed plane videos produced by me John and currently quite nice corner of southern UK. And all that's left to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music play us out please. >> [music] [music] >> It is the 12th of February, 2017, and some 180,000 people are receiving some terrible news. They have to leave their homes, but it's not due to war or anything like that, but the source of their electricity and drinking water. No, there isn't some kind of mass wiring/plumbing issue, but it is the source of the power itself that is threatening their homes. You see, the residents are from parts of but [music] Yuba and Stutter counties in California. All of which are situated along the Feather River basin. A part of the Orville Dam upstream is threatening to collapse, leading to a period of time called the Orville Dam crisis. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. Today's video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos, then you can from just £1 per month. As always, the links will be in the pinned comment below. >> [music] >> the dam. So, like all damn videos, we've got to go back to the beginning, and that is the construction of a new water holding back structure, aka me in the bath, or in less technical terms, a dam. So, we go back to 1960 and the beginnings of the California State Water Project. This was a massive undertaking to provide reliable water to Southern California. Part of the project was to build multiple new pieces of infrastructure [music] and one massive key in this statewide water system was a dam. Not just any dam, but the tallest dam in the United States. It would hold back and create the Orville reservoir and provide a readily available power source for the Edward Hyatt power plant. Anyh who, construction of the dam began in 1957 with railway tracks operated by Western Pacific Railroad being removed. Before the dam's footings were built, extensive site surveys were undertaken involving core drillings and mappings of the region. Running between 1961 and 1962, two diversion tunnels were built to take the Feather River flow away from the dam site. In 1963, the concrete core was built into which the remaining dam would be constructed, which was to be of an earth and fill embankment [music] type. A lot of time, effort, and ultimately money went into the design and build of the dam and the power station. All great stuff. However, not the same amount of energy went into the plans for a vital part of any project of this type that is of a spillway. You see, spillways are a vital cog in the machine that is a dam and its reservoir. They are intended to safely release excess water from say floods or heavy rain causing the reservoir to fill up. The dam actually has two spillways. An emergency one which was intended to provide over topping relief and the main spillway. Water could also be discharged via the hydroelectric power station and the river outlet [music] valve. Anyh who, the main spillway or service spillway is located on the right abutment of the main dam. When looking downstream, it has an unlined approach from the reservoir where a gated headwork structure is situated. After the gate house, water flows down a chute. This is a 179 ft wide by over 3,000 ft long concrete works. It was a made of multiple slabs of concrete poured over steel reinforcement founded directly onto the rock. The rock foundation varied in quality from solid weathered all the way down to loose soil like rock. [music] This would prove later to be an inconsistent place for foundations. The slab was anchored to the rock using steel rods. The slab had a minimum thickness of 15 in. However, this was reduced over drainage areas. So, the whole project was complete in 1968, but the spillway wouldn't see its first use until a year later in 1969. Over the years, the spillway would be used, which under the great power of the water flows would require a number of repairs to the chute slabs, most notably in the years of 1977, 1985, 1997, 2009, and 2013. Damage to the spillway came in the form of expansion joint damage, [music] delamination, slab cracks, and spooling. Repair work would involve patching up the damaged area, which over time would to lead to extra wearing down. Now, before we get to the crisis, I have to mention that in 2005, the project underwent rellicensing. This raised some concerns about the emergency spillway. It was unlined and thus was just a slope. If used, the flow of water could cause significant erosion and thus damage to the local area. Pressure groups posited that the emergency spillway could be lined with concrete, which would reduce damage if used. So, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission didn't add the requirement for the emergency spillway to be lined during its licensing. And this would come back to bite the dam later. Which brings us on to the crisis. The crisis. Our disaster begins with a high inflow of water into the Orville reservoir at the beginning of February 2017. As the water level rose, operators set about the process of opening the spillway gates to manage the increasing water depth. Between the 6th and 10th of February 2017, 12.8 8 in or 330 mm of rain had fallen on the Feather River basin where 30,000 cub feet/s of water was flowing into the reservoir on the 6th of February. Normally, this is no bother. The spillway could handle this amount of water. However, as the 7th drew in, higher flows into the basin reached 130,000 cub feet per second. Again, no problem. Just increase the flow along the spillway. Great. Well, operators noticed something rather odd. The slipway had a flow of 52,500 cubic feet per second, far below the maximum ever recorded, which was at 180,000. But the odd thing was that the flow of water was looking a little bit off. Water was flowing off the side of the spillway about a third to a half the way down. Operators stopped the flow down to the spillway [music] and the crater was revealed. Parts of the concrete lining had disappeared and erosion had begun at the failure point. This created a massive rock and hard place situation for the operators. Do they continue using the clearly compromised spillway or allow the basin to fill to the point that it would over top the emergency spillway which could potentially cause all the erosion issues mentioned in the 2005 [music] relic licensing debacle. They chose to keep on using the main spillway, hoping that a reduced flow rate wouldn't cause that much more damage. The spillway gates were opened on the 9th of February, and again, water started flowing down. The reduced flow was not enough to reduce the basin water level, and it slowly rose. It was seeming like the water level would over top the emergency spillway. As such, workers began on the 10th of February, cutting away trees and clearing the site to allow for a smoother flow of water down the hillside. The water over top the emergency spillway on the 11th. But quickly it was becoming apparent that the wear that was holding the water back was being eroded at its base quicker than anticipated. This was from the water flowing down the hillside below the emergency spillway wear. Some erosion was expected but not as much as it was happening in reality. [music] Bearing in mind that this was the first time that the emergency spillway had ever been used in the project's history. Now, this was threatening complete failure of the concrete wear, which would release a deadly torrent of water down the Feather River. This was estimated to be a wall of water 30 ft in height. In order to prevent the potentially disastrous release, the main spillway was again pressed into service, blasting water down into the eroded crater. But unsurprisingly, this increased the erosion of the spillway. Fearing a major disaster with the emergency spillway failing on the 12th of February, an evacuation was ordered for the low-lying areas of the Feather River basin that run through but Yuba and Sutter counties to be evacuated. The unfolding brown trouser situation was that of a failed spillway blasting water over the edge which would erode more of the spillway [music] and a create a huge chance of a major failure of the wear. By the evening of the 12th, the water level was thankfully below the emergency spillway wear. This allowed [music] workers to inspect the damage and to place boulders and undertake temporary shoring upworks. There was a real fear though in keeping the flow along the main spillway where the erosion at the failure site would move backwards towards the spillway gates [music] which if then failed would cause an uncontrollable flow of water. By the morning of the 13th, in addition to the boulders, sandbags were dropped from helicopters into the eroded area below the emergency spillway. Were by this time an estimated 188,000 people have been evacuated and this is roughly two and a half times the population of the town of Guilford Surrey. Panic took over the town of Orville with, as noted in an NBC news article, it was just panic. People were running in the streets. [music] Cars were speeding through town. Over the following days, the water level reduced and shoring up work along the emergency spillway continued. With the catastrophic release of water being averted, the evacuation order was downgraded to an evacuation watch on the 14th of February. With the water at a manageable level, the spillway gates was shut after the 27th of February and the full extent of the damage was realized. Two massive sections of the main spillway had completely been eroded, pushing debris, concrete, soil, and rocks into the Feather River. This had reduced the flow from the power plant, which had in turn caused power issues to the residents in the area. The shutting of the spillway gates allowed some of the debris to be removed from the river, which in turn allowed the power station to come back online. To allow repair works, Lake Orville was kept at a lower level as to negate the need for spillway usage. The repair would continue for over a year, finally being completed in its improved form in November 2018. Although the crisis didn't end up in a Noah invoking flood, it did cause a localized econom economic disaster with over $1 billion in damage being caused. And this included debris that was blasted down the river which had damaged flood levies. Interestingly, the state blocked any class action lawsuit against it, which was upheld in California's third district court of appeals, meaning that any lawsuits against the state, basically the owner of the dam, would have to be brought individually, which makes it much easier for the state to fight. On top of the people that had to be evacuated, over 9 million fish had to be evacuated as well from the Orville hatchery. But what was the cause? Well, one massive investigation report would dive into that little chestnut. The investigation. So, whilst the disaster was still ongoing, the DWR commissioned an independent board of consultants on the 17th of February to probe into the causes behind the spillway failure. The investigation would go on for 9 months involving an independent investigation panel. The damage was poured over and importantly the human factors were also considered. Diving into the history of the project showed that issues with the spillway were highlighted as early as the late 1960s. The chute slab wasn't even up to the best practices of construction at the day which was not having double reinforcement and not very good under chute drainage. It was also found that the principal design of the spillway was fresh out of university which led to a lot of errors during the design phase not being picked up such as no adjustments to the anchor depth for less stable ground conditions. This was not just a design issue but also an as constructed problem where the variability of the foundation material should have caused adjustments to the anchor lengths on site. But it wasn't just down to a couple of people. Such a large project goes through hands of a multitude of numbers all of whom missed the mark [music] sadly upon the alter of cost savings as mentioned in the independent review. The decision-making during the design and construction may also reflect cost pressures possibly combined with schedule pressures. One indicator of this is that the bid price for the spillway construction was reportedly about 10% below the engineers's estimate. The engineers plans were seemingly not reviewed to fit the actual site conditions. It is common for modifications to be made along the way when transferring from paper to reality. The project, at least for the spillway construction, didn't review what other spillways on other dams had previously done, creating a situation where best practices weren't considered or even the mistakes of others weren't even learned from. But the disaster didn't happen overnight. For some 50 years of the spillway history was littered with multiple chances to remedy issues. We already know the chute was repaired on multiple occasions. This hints that the concrete was having a few issues. This was due to the foundation quality being poor. But on each 5-year review, it was incorrectly identified as good quality rock. Cracking concrete in the chute slab was considered normal and just patched up. However, as the years went on, these cracks would allow for reinforcement deterioration, which in turn weakened the concrete further. Just filling in the cracks doesn't really fix this, and it is quite literally the same as wallpapering over the cracks in a house. It doesn't fix the cause. So, on the 7th of February, 2017, the mechanics of the failure were water finding its way into the concrete chute slab via joints and cracks. This caused an uplift at the slab which not being properly anchored resulted in localized failures and eventual crater and erosion hole. Once the hole was created, further erosion took place which ultimately resulted in further concrete [music] slab failure. The disaster, although being a mechanical failure, was ultimately a very common one on to [clears throat] this channel that is of a human nature. missing the warning signs and carrying on as normal until the whole show explodes. Now, that's my video on the Orville dam failure. It's going to be a two on my scale, but it has to be a nine for those who had to evacuate in fear of their lives. And this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a plentif foot video. All videos on the channel creative commons attribution share light licensed pliff videos are produced by me John in a currently quite nice corner of southern London UK and all that's left to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music play us out please [music] >> [music] >> Sometimes the most innocuous looking things are dangerous. We can apply this to a lot of items that we see on our daily routine which if used incorrectly can become dangerous. Many accidents occur from people not understanding the risks of the activity that they are doing. And work sites are no different. Be it accidental falls, being hit by debris, or incorrectly using tools. Today's subject is about how one silly mistake led to someone losing their leg. And it's not how you might think, as the cause of the amputation would also result in others feeling ill. The item in question that looks so innocent turned out to be a powerful radiation emmitting source. Today we are looking at the Yanango radiological accident. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos, then you can from just £1 per month. As always, the links will be in the pinned comment below. >> [music] >> So before we begin this video, I have based this very heavily off the AEA investigation into the incident. To read more information about it, please check out the link under the sources section in the pinned comment background. So before we get into some radiationbased nightmares, we need to talk about the country in which the radiological accident happened. This for today is Peru. And like almost any country in the world, it has a regulatory framework for the use of many different dangerous materials. And for radioactive materials, this is no different. In our case today, this is the Institute Perunio de Energia nuclear shortened to IPEN. They are responsible for licensing and keeping track of all the country's users of radiation sources of which there are around 1,200 individuals and around 15 registered radiography companies. This includes many fields for example x-raying radiotherapy and non-destructive weld imaging. This is what will be the focus of our video here. Roll on our unnamed company a Peru-based small radiography company. They had operated since the early 1980s and had been registered with IPEN. The company's history was not the most smooth, which you would not prefer with a company that deals with deadly materials. Basically, as noted in the IAEA report into their later bulls up, the company had left the radioactive source housing unattended at an oil field in 1982, which had subsequently been stolen. Don't worry, it would be fully recovered fairly quickly after some assistance from IPM. This may have hindered the company continuing to [music] operate, but Peru's legislation around radioactive sources at the time was primitive in 1982, and thus no punishment could be dealt to the company. The company would renew its license with IPEN on a regular basis as required in the then improved Peruvian regulations of the 1990s. So, you'd think the company was following the rules, right? and all was good. Well, yes and no. But we'll talk about this later on in the video. Anyways, this small company earned its money from industrial radiography, which was non-destructive testing using ionizing radiation. The company used an Idium 192 sourced radiography camera. This was a projection type. The camera was where the source was contained when not being used for an exposure. This had 35 kg of depleted uranium as shielding from their Idium 192 source. Inside the container was an S-shaped channel in which the source was housed when not in use. One end of the source had a thing called a pigtail which would be attached to a drive cable for winding out for making an exposure. Each end of the container had a plug at which one end was where the source guide tube was attached and the other was where the drive cable was attached to the pigtail. Once all attached, an operator could wind via a crank out the source along the guide tube out to its end. Now, to make an exposure, a film plate is placed behind the item to be non-destructively tested. The source guide tube end is placed on the other side of the to be tested item. Then, the operator would wind out the source to the end of the guide tube from a safe distance. Once wound out, the source is then kept bare for the required exposure time, after which the source is wound back into its safe container. Now, the company used ropes and signs to warn off any passes by of any exposure being undertaken, and operators were given dosmeters and dose badges, although apparently these items were not really used in practice. Operators were responsible for the safe operation of of the radiography source and they were issued with an emergency kit which included a radiation detector, handling tongs, additional shielding, warning signs and extra ropes which leads us onto our disaster which would occur at a hydroelectric plant site on the 20th of February 1999. the disaster. This is the Yanango hydroelect electric plant near San Raman, Peru. In February 1999, some repair works were being undertaken. A welder and his assistant were instructed to and started to repair a weld a 2 m diameter pipe. The pipe would be under extreme pressure. As such, to make sure the repairs would be of good quality, the welds were arranged to be radioraphed. The radiographic operator and his assistant set up their source guide tube at the area to be exposed. The plan originally was for the exposure to happen during lunchtime when the workers would be taking their break. However, the welding took longer than anticipated. Thus, the exposure would be delayed. The source container was left locked with the drive cable connected, but the guide tube was left disconnected. The welder returned at 2 p.m. and continued working on the pipe. Meanwhile, the radiographer went on to do some ultrasonics testing [music] of the pipe in a different area. Now, during this time, at roughly 400 p.m., the welder found an interesting thing, a weird piece of metal on the ground. He picked it up, examined it in his hands, and placed it in the back right pocket of his jeans. He chatted around 6 p.m. with the radiographer, but didn't mention his discovery, which is a shame, as it turned out the item that he had found was the unshielded Aridium 192 source from the radiography device. He spent the next few hours working on the pipe, spending around half his time sitting. At 9:00 p.m., he felt a pain on his back right thigh. He finished the work around 10:00 p.m. and took a mini bus home. He got home around 10:30 p.m. and took off his trousers, leaving them on the floor. He then changed his clothes and showed to his wife his painful area on his thigh. By now, red mark had appeared. He went to a local doctor who, upon inspecting the irritation, put it down to an insect bite. During this time, at his home, his wife had sat on the jeans and breastfed her 18-month-old baby. Remembering that he had picked up something on the work site, the welder took the metallic item and put it into his bathroom. Meanwhile, back at the hydroelectric plant, the radiographer around 10 p.m. had been informed of the completed welded pipe work and set about getting the radiography machine ready for an exposure. During the process, the radiographers's assistant noticed that his survey meter was not showing any signs of radiation. Regardless, the radiographer went on to develop the exposed films of the repaired section of pipe, which yielded no signs of radiation exposure. What did he do with this information, then? Well, at 10:30 p.m., he traveled into San Raman to have dinner. Eventually, returning to the site at midnight, the concern of the exposure not being successful had finally hit the radiographer, who on the torch light went inside the pipe and inspected the camera. He found the screws of the lock of the unit were loose. Worried, he disassembled the drive cable and found the vital source pigtail was not there. What did this mean? Well, there was no source in the radiography unit. It had vanished. The aridium 192 and its 1.37 terabules of radioactivity had gone. At 12:30 in the morning, he rushed back to San Ramon to tell the company based in Lemur that the source was missing. In doing so, requesting more survey meters and personnel to assist with the search, the operator went about all of the residences of the workers on site during the day. Finally reaching the front door of the welder at around 1:00 a.m. in the morning, they knocked on the door and when greeted by the welder, he was asked if he had seen the source. He went to the bathroom and returned to the front of the house with it in his hands. The assistant survey meter began to indicate high radiation levels as they heard the footsteps approaching the door. The welder appeared holding the source with his bare hands. The radiographer upon seeing the source shouted for the welder to throw it into the street. The radiographer put a stone over the source and closed off the area, leaving another member of staff by the source. He then got his emergency equipment. The source pigtail was reattached to the source drive cable all whilst doing this by covering it up with some metal shielding and after 2 minutes of wrangling the source was safely returned to the camera container. The welder and his family would be sent to hospital for treatment and it [music] would not end out well. Aftermath. On [snorts] the 21st of February 1999, the welder was admitted to the National Cancer Hospital in Lima roughly 20 hours post exposure. He was entered with what looked like a rather large blister. Biopsies on his bone marrow showed severe damage. The estimated localized dose of radiation was 9,966 gray. This was estimated on a small portion of the welder of skin with the dose estimated at 258 gray at a cm deep at the tissue. For context, a whole body dose of 10 gray or more can kill within hours. This meant that the welder had received 100 times the lethal dose, although being localized to just a small area, which would save his life, but sadly not his leg. He would eventually lose his leg after months of agony and a transfer to France for treatment. His wounds suffered severe necrosis, leaving the patient in constant pain and isolated from his family back home proved to hinder his progress. He was returned back to Peru on the 17th of October 1999. His prospects did improve as once again he was reunited with his family, albeit at an intensive care unit in a hospital near his home. But how did the source get out of its container in the first place? To be allowed to be picked up by someone who wouldn't have really known the full risk of the Idian 192. It would turn out that although registering the import of a new Iridium 192 source in November 1998, the company failed to notify IPEN of the new source container, also known as the camera, in 1999. Thus, the regulator was in the dark about the piece of equipment involved in the incident. This container would prove to be very easy to open even without a key reportedly in the IAEA report with just simple screwdrivers. This meant that the container was vulnerable to unauthorized opening. And once unlocked, it was possible to just push out the source out of the camera with just a piece of wire. So theft couldn't really be ruled out then, as someone may have thought that the source could be valuable and something worth pocketing. But a second non-fair theory was also considered in that the source could have accidentally fallen out of the camera after the plug had been removed. Although the radiographer claimed that they had attached a drive cable to the pigtail. Error or theft, no one could really definitively prove either way. Not the company, IPEN or the IAEA. But the company had some other issues as well. It didn't have a radiation protection officer. Instead, the radiographer was filling in. However, they had not received all the correct training for the role that they were stepping up to doing. And it also turned out they hadn't even had the proper training for the radiographers's role. As noted in the IAEA report, the Persian responsible for carrying out the radiography was not fully trained and a qualified radiographer. It would have been the radiographers's responsibility to tell anyone working nearby of the risks of the machinery they were using, which did not happen. This included informing the welder, which again failed to happen. The whole event was a mess up, and it's something that we keep on seeing with radiation events. Poor training, no one knowing the risks, and poor regulations. It reminds me of other South American events I've covered before in radiation-based videos, such as the radiation bus or the Goyani incident. So, that's my video on the Yanango radiological accident. It's going to be a two on my disaster scale. And this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a plain difficult production. All videos on the channel, Creative Commons, Attribution Shellite licensed. Plain diff plainly difficult videos are produced by me, John, and a currently very warm corner of southern London, UK. And all that's left to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music. Play us out please. [music] >> [music] [music] >> It is the evening of the 27th of May 2017 and building contractors are finishing up for the day. They have been working on a new multi-use four-story building for the second busiest airport in the Netherlands. The project which began the year earlier is part of an overall expansion of the airport which began in 2012. The building is just one month away from its late June, early July opening. But today, fate has a different idea. In a matter of moments, a 60 m by 15 m section of the top floor crashed down into the rest of the building, causing a partial collapse. My name is John, and welcome to Plainly Difficult. Today, we're looking at this mess, the Einhovven car park collapse. Today's video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos, when you can from just £1 per month, as always, the links will be in the pin comment below. [music] Background before we start, I'm just going to say that I like car parks. I mean, I hate parking in them, but something about building something solely for the housing of vehicles is a little bit amusing to me. But not only that, they're also a great opportunity to look at her like skeleton of a building. I mean, imagine an office block minus all the furnishing and you've got a car park. I know there's more to it than that, but I'm just a train and vintage music equipment loving idiot. This is Einhovven Airport in the Netherlands, which is around here on a map. Its history goes all the way back to its grass runway beginnings in 1932. Quickly, the site would see more and more military usage as tensions grew on the continent as a certain country was looking like it was going to kick off again. Well, they would kick off again and quickly take over the Netherlands during the 7-day battle of the Netherlands. The Germans would repurpose the airfield, pave its runway, and build a few buildings for aircraft. Or I should say that that battle took place in the Second World War. The airport would change hands again a few years later when US paratroopers landed. The Dutch would get their airport back and under their control in 1952, and it became a vital part of the Royal Netherlands Air Force. Its main use as a military base would change in the early 1980s when a passenger terminal was constructed. Passenger numbers would grow over the next couple of decades, welcoming such prestigious and high-end airlines as WhizAir and Ryan Air. The airport's management wanted to further improve its amenities in the mid2010s. The plan was to repurpose the site of the P1 car park opposite the terminal. The plan was to build more parking, but combine it with extra restaurants, a kiss and ride zone, and a covered public transport terminal. The airport selected the Beaver Architects to design their new building and awarded the construction to Royal BAM Group. The building was intended to be as green as possible, ignoring the fact that it was to be built from concrete. But the building was to make use of a fairly new system for reducing its need for such concrete. And that is this stuff, the bubble deck. It's an interesting one as it lightens concrete slabs by using recycled spherical plastic balls to create voids within the slab. This eliminates the majority of concrete from the middle of the floor slab. This area generally doesn't offer much of the slab's inherent structural strength. Thus, it reduces the dead weight of the slab, cutting down on weight and costs. In the top and the bottom of the slabs, there are reinforcement steel mesh tied together with a latis of steel beams. Void slabs aren't a new thing, however, but the use of plastic spheres was the quote unquote revolutionary new construction method. The slabs for the new building would be cast off site at Bubble Deck's factory. However, the supporting columns which were quite vital to the building would be cast on site in Sichi. During the building's construction, the slabs were raised and held in place on a support structure. After temporary installation, connections between the slabs and columns were made. This was steel reinforcement with pulled concrete over the connections. Once sufficiently hard, the temporary support structure was then removed. The slabs were designed to be laid lengthwise as they transfer the load in two directions from its center point to the supports, but an issue with the building would come around, requiring some changes to the usually installed method for bubble deck panels. In the car parking area, the distance between the supports was 15 m. This was larger than the maximum pre-cast slab of around 10 m. Instead, it was decided to rotate the slabs 90° like so, placing multiple slabs next to each other to bridge the gap. In addition, the panels were arranged in an archlike formation. This helped to spread the load outwards like on the arch of a bridge. The coupling between these slabs and redirected support bands had to be beefed up as the now coupling reinforcement will be required to carry the full load. But we'll remember that little bit for later on. Interestingly, when the tender was bid on by Bubble Deck, they didn't highlight the non-standard installation method. You see, having the archway installation actually came with a slight benefit. That was that there was always going to be a plan to add an additional layer of concrete on top of each floor to allow for some shaping for rainwater runoff. But with this arch, this requirement was pretty much met without the need for the extra concrete layer. In doing so, again, saving weight and that precious, precious money. What a great workound, you might say. The disaster. It is the 27th of May, 2017, and the multi-use building is so very near completion. Work has just completed on the fourth floor, and the fit out of the restaurants below was well underway. Opening is scheduled for around late June and early July. Workers in the 120 m wide by 65 m deep building are in the early evening packing up to go home. Close to 7:00 p.m. some strange noises could be heard from the fourth floor. In just a matter of moments, a 60 m by 15 m section of the top floor crashed down into the lower floors. This caused the lower floors to then collapse themselves, smashing concrete, steel, and other debris out into the surrounding area. It caused a localized power cut which would hinder air traffic at Einhovven over the following hours. The collapse had happened in just a blink of an eye without any real warning. Emergency services arrived on scene pretty quickly and began looking for survivors, but amazingly all they found were just onlookers standing to the side. It was becoming apparent that the collapse was completely bloodless. And now I get to hit this lovely no one died button. a busy airport with traffic, workers, and aircraft flying ahead and not one single injury. Even when just moments before the collapse, a car had driven by. It was probably a true miracle. Although no one was harmed, the airport's pockets would get a battering. It was estimated that the collapse caused 22 million euro worth of damage, both for the airport and local economy. As always with unexpected self-dismantling of buildings, the calls had to be found out which leads us on to the investigation. Roam Group and the airport would conduct their own investigations into the collapse, releasing its findings in September 2017. They blamed poor shear strength at slab connections exasperated by the some 30° centigrade temperatures leading up to the collapse. But this cause did not mention a change to the as intended installation of the slabs. However, someone had noticed this change. Although the contractor had released their report, another very in-depth investigation would be launched by the Dutch safety board who would come to a very different conclusion. They poured over the rubble and the asbuilt plans and a concern was highlighted. You guessed it, the rotation of the slabs one quarter turn from how they are normally installed. As I mentioned earlier in the video, the coupling between the slabs needed to be beefed up. Well, guess what? They weren't. And this left a vulnerability. This was from heat. Heat which came around during the hot spells of weather like what had hit Einhovven in May of 2017. This caused the couplings to expand which in turn caused buckling across the slabs which then in turn caused the collapse. The change in installation did not trigger any concerns with the developers as noted by the safety board report. At that time, none of the parties saw these signs as a reason to call the structural safety into question. Although they could and indeed should have done so, which puts the blame from what BAM said, imperfect adhesion between the floor slab back to poor decision-m, pointing the finger right back at the developers. As noted in the report, failure to understand the consequences of the floor design was therefore the direct cause of the collapse. It was also apparent that stress cracks had formed prior to the collapse which all concerns should have been investigated. However, they did not. Again, quoting the report, there were clear signs during the attendering process and in the implementation phase, including the formation of cracks and puddles to indicate the presence of structural safety failings. In the aftermath, Ban would have to rebuild the failed building and reach a settlement with the airport in private. The new building was completed in October 2019. So, that's my video on the Iron Hovven building collapse. It's going to be a two on my scale and this is what I got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is Plentifford production. All videos on the channel are creative commons attribution shite like licensed. Plenty of videos are produced by me, John, in the currently quite warm corner of southern London, UK. And also today's Thank you very much for watching. And Mr. Music, can you do me a favor and play this out, please? It is July 1945 and all seems calm at Farm Hall, God Manchester, England. Some new guests are at the house and they are settling into what feels like a nice bit of English country luxury. The men, however, rather strangely for the time being welcomed into the building are German. And not just any Germans. They were just a few years earlier a vital part of the German war machine. So why are they in the relative luxury of their once enemies countryside? Well, they are scientists and they are prisoners of war. Clearly, not all PS after the fall of Germany in the Second World War were housed in such comfortable surroundings. They are to be interrogated by the British to try and find out what they have been up to during the past few years of the war. The men are known informally as the Uranium Club and its lead was Vera Carl Heisenberg. But we aren't here for a rundown of their six-month interrogation at Farm Hall. We're actually here for a nuclear disaster. The first disaster involving a nuclear reactor in human history. You see, the Uranium Club had been building a nuclear weapons program, and part of this was in a city called Leipzig. Today, we're looking at the LV4 experiment disaster. My name is John, and welcome to Plainly Difficult. Today's video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos, then you can from just £1 per month. As always, the links will be in the pin comment below. [music] The German pursuit of nuclear. It's probably not a shock to anyone, but all of the major players in the 1930s were chasing the splitting of the atom, and Germany was no exception. This was unofficially called the uranium or uran project beginning not long after the discovery of nuclear fision in 1938 by Otto Fran hit Straussman Lisa Maidner and Otto Robert FSH. The discovery would pave the way for nuclear power and atomic weapons happening just before the outbreak of the war. The discovery managed to make it to the United States. The German nuclear efforts would quickly be stunted after the invasion of Poland when men in the scientific community were pressed into service in the vermat. The drafty scientists were moved to a German army-led nuclear weapons program in the here's rough and limit. The Germans weapons program was split into three sections. The uranium machine or also known as nuclear reactor development which is the main focus for our video today. materials production I uranium and vital heavy water and uranium isotope separation. However, the project was slated to take at least five years before any usable weapon could be created. And because of this, in 1942, the project was very fragmented with each department doing its own research to its own set of goals and in relative isolation from one another. In order to research potential critical assemblies, four uranium machines would be tested at the physics institute in the University of Leapig. They would be named L1 to L4 and were built to Heisenberg's theoretical work and tested by Robert Doppel. The test reactors were spherical again following Heisenberg's theory. At one point there was even another experimental pile at the University of Hadleberg. This was 4 tons of uranium oxide and 435 kg of water mixed in an earth and wear vat. But that wasn't the only one. Another pile was also planned to be built in Berlin around 1940 and was designated the B pile. This was again a cylindrical shape but was loaded with layers of uranium oxide and interestingly having paraffin as its moderator. A chain reaction was not observed here even when the union uranian content was increased. Meanwhile in Leipzig tests with the first two uranium machines i.e. L1 and L2 were undertaken. These use uranium oxide and light water on L1 but 164 kg of heavy water was used in L2. L3 was assembled by Doppel and used 160 kg of heavy water and 140 kg of uranium oxide in two layers within a 75 cm aluminium sphere. And again, no increase in neutrons was found. But the Leipzig team continued on and this leads us on to the LV4. Don't worry, we are getting closer to a disaster. L4. The next part of the project was the L4 and it began in May 1942. The L4 pile used the same sphere principle style with pure uranium powder weighing at 750 kg with 140 kg of heavy water. These contents were placed within two aluminium hemispheres bolted together with a diameter of around 80 cm. The whole assembly was submerged in a bath of light water for neutron reflection and for a kind of biological shield. In the center of the assembly was a neutron source injection channel in which a burillium starter source would be inserted. At the top of the reactor vessel, there was a vacuum. This allowed for thermal expansion of the heavy water. But those of you who have seen nuclear reactor based videos on the channel before might have noticed something a little bit absent. that is any form of radioactivity control if a chain reaction would ever to take place. Thus, there was no real way to shut down the pile if it got started. During the 20 or so days that the L4 was active, the scientists noticed that the pile was beginning to emit more neutrons at the pile's surface than just what the source itself would have emitted. It looked like the pile was starting to work. Now, the scientists working in the pile saw bubbling water at the top seal and this was hinting at a potential leak. This was June the 23rd of 1945. Operators were ordered to open up the pile, bearing in mind that the reactor had no criticality controls. When the pile was opened up, air was sucked in from the vacuum at the top of the pile. The air, most notably the oxygen in the air, reacted with the hydrated uranium powder. Quickly, the mixture ignited and temperatures within the pile sped up to nearly a,000° centigrade. This ended up boiling the water inside the sphere and the light water reflector. A massive selfdeconstruction of the pile followed, shooting boiling water and burning uranium powder up into the air by several meters. Multiple smaller explosions and fires would continue on for two more days after the accident. in doing so, destroying the building and the pile that was situated within it. The human cost is very vague. Reportedly, no one was killed by the accident, although some other reports have had the death toll up to four. One thing that is certain, though, is that the event probably caused longerterm conditions from the exposure, although tracking this is next to impossible due to the historical period. [music] But the damage to the German weapons program was much further reaching. The aftermath. Now, the explosion was not just the loss of the pile, but the loss of the very valuable uranium and just as vital heavy water. It would set back the disjointed program. The pile experiments at Leipzig were cancelled. Instead, further PAL experiments would take place at the Berlin campus. But although a catastrophic unexpected uranium configuration, the L4 had proved that net neutron production could be achieved in the German project. The efforts in Berlin will be continued to be wasted by the German war to turn against it. Another experimental pile, the Hegelot research reactor did achieve a chain reaction from neutron bombardment of uranium, but it did not achieve criticality. This happened just in the closing days of World War II. The German nuclear reactor program would abruptly end when US soldiers ended up turning up and deconstructed and shipped off the reactor to the USA for investigations towards [music] the end of April 1945. Now this leads us back to Farmh Hall in England. Between the 1st of May and 30th of June 1945, many of the higher up ranking scientists of the German nuclear program had been captured. 10 were transferred to the UK for interrogations. During this time, the world's first nuclear reactor disaster came to light as the scientists were bugged at Farm Hall and their conversations were overheard. Interestingly, they were very ignorant to the US nuclear program. As when they were told of the more successful deployment of atomic weapons over Japan, many showed complete disbelief. They were a long way off building a nuclear weapon. But at least they did get one first in nuclear history. And although this would not, as we all know, be the last nuclear reactor accident to ever occur. So, that's my video on the world's first nuclear reactor disaster. I know I'm no Mark Felton, but my rating is going to be a one on the on the disaster scale. And this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a plenty of production. All videos on the channel, a creative common actuation shell like licensed plentiful videos produced by me, John, in a currently quite warm corner of southern London, UK. And all I have to say is thank you very much for watching. And Mr. Music, play us out, please. >> [music] [music] >> It is the 24th of November 1978 and an oil tanker is departing Saudi port Ras Tanura with a destination of the Portuguese port of Lexus. This journey would be far from problem free. Her cargo is 114,000 tons of crude oil. Needless to say, it's a rather dangerous shipment. Carrying oil always has some inherent danger for both life and the environment if things take a little turn south. The ship would incur issues. Plans were thrown out when at Lexos, a ranagram vessel closed the port. The ship would then be redirected to an oil terminal on the southern tip of Ireland in County Cork on an island named Woody Island. One of Ireland's worst industrial disasters would unfold there. Today we're looking at the Witty Island disaster or the Beetlejuice explosion. Today's video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos, you can from just £1 per month. As always, the links will be in the pin comment below. I've always been fascinated with Irish history. You may not know this, but I have dual citizenship of both the UK and ROI. [music] Argus is mob. Sorry for butchering the language there, but hey, RTE, if you're looking for some awful cartoons and a disembodied voice for some history/d disaster shows, my door is always open. And don't worry, there won't be much more Irish speaking during this video for me to butcher. Oh, I did miss the intro though, so here it goes. Jonas Anamdom, Augustus Vulture. Go plainly difficult. Witty Island. This is Bantry Bay. It's on the southern coast of the island of Ireland in County Cork. The bay has a couple of islands, but for today, we're only really focusing on Witty Island. Throughout its history, the island has shown to have strategic importance to the region. The British had built defenses on the island in the 1800s aimed at warding off a French invasion. Now, why is the bay so important? Well, it faces the Atlantic Ocean and is deep, deep enough to accommodate very large vessels. The bay was also not massively built up like other ports in Europe, which again made it ideal for very large shipping. The island gained military use from the US during the closing years of the First World War. The country was still under British rule at the time, but after independence, the island mainly saw use as a fishing community, albeit with a gradually declining population. In the 1960s, the island would see a new boom of economic activity. This was from the oil industry. Again, Bantry Bay's deep waters would end up being the reason for the renewed interest in the area. Let me explain. The oil industry was in the process of expanding shipping of crude oil across the globe. Soon enough, economics of scale seemed to be the most profitable way to ship oil. This essentially meant that oil tankers would get bigger and bigger and bigger. But although more economical to transport loads of oil on massive tankers, legacy ports around the world and most apparently in Europe were far too small and built up to accommodate such vessels. The company Gulf Oil expressed an interest in developing an oil terminal in Bantry Bay. This led to in 1966 the court county council granting planning permission for a new island terminal. Construction started a year later with the site coming online in 1969. The terminal brought a lot of economic growth to the Bantry area. The success had been spurred on by the sewers canal being closed after the 6- day war and the occupation of Israel of the Sinai Peninsula from between 1967 and 1975. The closure had pushed the ultra large shipping vessel's popularity further as shipping had to navigate around Africa from the Middle East if it wanted to get to Europe. The old terminal was laid out as such. It was made up of two parts, the offshore jetty and an onshore terminal. The terminal was on the southwest corner of Witty Island. It has a tank farm and other bits and pieces for operations. The farm has 12 crude oil storage tanks. Each one has a capacity of 80,000 tons. There are also two tanks for ballast, two for bunker oil, and one for diesel oil. [music] These are all slightly smaller in size, though. The jetty is connected to the onshore facility only via an underwater pipeline, which required any type of transfer of personnel or material from the jetty to the mainland was done via small feries. The jetty was 1,600 ft long and was an island type structure sat at top piles into the seabed. [music] Access was via boat to the shore and the jetty was claimed to have an ability to service ships with up to 500,000 tons of dead weight. The jetty had two bs allowing two ships to be accommodated at one time. When birthing to the jetty, ships were assisted with up to four tugs and a pilot. When offloading, oil is undertaken. Articulated Chickixon loading arms are employed. They are connected to the submarine pipelines which then ran to the tank farm. Initially the terminal saw good business and the ultra-large oil tanker concept worked pretty well with the sewers canal being shut. However, in 1975 the Egyptian government opened the canal for shipping once again and those big old bastard tankers were way too large to navigate the canal's locks and waterways. Thus, the whole operation around Bantry Bay began to waver and as always cost savings normally followed along and less and less vessels visited the bay. This was the story towards the end of the 1970s, the same time as when our disaster took place. However, one of the vessels that would call at the oil terminal was the MV Beetlejuice. She was a 268 m long by 38.9 m wide ship with a gross weight tonnage of 61,766. She was built in 1968 and was owned by French company Total Petroleum and had a complement of 42 crew. By the end of the 1970s, she was showing her signs of age even though only being just over 10 years old. This was due to the whole cost savings and cutting backs due to the whole ultra-large oil tanker concept starting to prove to be a little less e economically viable. The disaster. So I mentioned at the start of the video that our disaster began on the 24th of November 1978. The old tank of Beetlejuice had a rather frustrating journey resulting in her directing to Witty Island, but she wouldn't reach there until the 4th of January 1979. A troublesome journey had meant that she was unable to lighten her load. Thus, her full 114,000 tons of flammable oil was still aboard. On route, she had discovered a leak, thus requiring her to be redirected back to France. But amazingly, the crew managed to fix it, allowing her to reach her destination on the southern tip of Ireland. The jetty at her arrival in the morning was occupied by the Beetlejuicees sister ship. As such, she wouldn't be able to dock until Saturday the 6th of January. Her pilot was dispatched and assisted in birthing but Juice. By 8:00 p.m. on the 6th of January, she was secured to the jetty. The discharge of her oil cargo began at 11:30 p.m. on the 6th. During this time, some of her crew went ashore. At around 1,800 hours on the 7th, offloading was over for the heavy oil and the valves to the lines to the onore tanks were turned off and the process of adding ballast began. This would take a little time and would run into the early hours of Monday morning. However, at around 12:30, a fire started around the front part of the Beetlejuice. As the minutes dragged on, the fire increased in intensity and suddenly spread on both sides of the vessel. A large plume of dense smoke emanated from the stricken vessel and around the same time witnesses in Bantry could see the fire starting to unfold. At around 10 to 1 in the morning, a small explosion rang out from the ship followed by smaller further detonations. Guarder officers in Bantry Bay at around the same time observed the unfolding fire. They tried to ring through to the Gulf control room, but the line was already busy. The operator informed them that the company was aware of the fires. The guard superintendent alerted the local fire officer and a Bantry Town fire siren was rung at around 1:00 a.m. At around the same time, a huge explosion erupted from the Beetlejuicees hole. The vessel was engulfed in a ball of fire, followed by further smaller explosions. Light from the main explosion had lit up the Dark Pantry Bay. It was estimated that temperatures had soared to almost a,000° centigrade aboard the vessel as her remaining flammable cargo continued to ignite. The ship began to split in half, releasing flaming fuel out into the water. Although a hellish scene was being witnessed, local fire brigade members along with firefighters from Skipper Breen and Dun Manwaye rushed towards the oil terminal on Witty Island. Locals offered up their fishing boats to assist in sending over people to help fight the flames. You see, if the fire spread back across to the terminal, the entire tank farm was in danger of exploding. Firefighters and Gulf employees sprayed the oil storage tanks with water in an effort to prevent another explosion. As the Beetlejuice fire raged on, parts of the jetty began to collapse into the water. But although the firefighters efforts were valiant and rather successful in preventing further explosions, their progress was hindered. The island's fire truck failed to start along with some Land Rovers that G had provided for emergency services. The fire would continue for around 12 hours after the explosion until the Beetlejuice sank at her moorings, extinguishing most of the flames. However, her bow defiantly remained above the waterline, releasing toxic smoke for another 2 weeks. Witnesses had seen figures aboard the vessel launched into the water upon the explosions, but personnel from the jetty and the ship wouldn't be found until the site was made safe. At first, 24 bodies were recovered. Some had washed ashore on Witty Island. Others had to be recovered by guarded divers. In total, 50 died in the explosion. This was the ship's crew and eight Gulf employees based on the jetty. The disaster had quickly become one of Ireland's worst maritime events and had etched itself into the country's psyche. Understandably, the event was widely reported across Ireland and wider parts of Europe. It would also end up in one of the largest ship salvage operations in history up until that point. But what was the cause? Well, one massive report of tribunal would be commissioned to dive into the underlying factors of the disaster. Exile member and high court judge Mr. Justice Costello was appointed to lead a tribunal inquiry into the disaster's investigation. the investigation and aftermath. So, there were a number of witnesses to the fire and ultimate explosions, and after multiple interviews, understandably from the stress, reports were rather conflicting. Thus, estimates were relied upon for the timeline. Regardless, investigators were very keen to dig into the Beetlejuicees history and state on the night of the explosion. It would quickly become apparent that the ship was far from good condition. It was discovered that an inspection of the tanker just 9 months before the disaster had revealed at least 37 cracks in the crude oil tanks. Not good. And as we know that the oil leak had been reported to the ship's owners a week before the disaster which had triggered the rrooting back to France. It was magically fixed to allow her to continue on to Witty Island, which seems like that the crew were just papering over the cracks to keep the ship going. Initially, after the explosions, inspections were carried out by divers on the 9th, 11th, and 12th of January. Although in poor weather conditions, some hints to the ship's condition were able to be found, and this included some buckling across the observed structure. During the investigation, a floating hose was used to pump the remaining oil to the oil terminal to lighten the bow section, and this recovered 10,000 tons of oil. The recovery operations allowed investigators to get a better look at the Beetlejuice's hull. The ballast tanks were found to be very badly corroded. The bow was later towed out of shore and scuttled. It was apparent that no firefighting efforts were made by anyone on board the ship or on the jetty. As mentioned in the tribunal report, all the valves on the ship's firefighting system and the jetty's firefighting system were found to be closed, and it can be reasonably concluded that no efforts to fight the fire was made either by the ship's crew or the jetty crew. This hinted that the fire didn't start on the jetty and was thus possibly a sudden event aboard the ship. This was supported by the terrible state of the beet juice, especially around its corroded ballast tanks. What's crazy was that the ship was just over a decade old, but she had been used and worked hard to with an inch of her life. This was due to the reducing economic viability of running the ultra large crude oil carriers. The ship was structurally overloaded during its ballasting. It was estimated that the ballast tanks had been loaded to around 90% of their capacity in the number two to number five center tanks which had been weakened by progressive rusting around the sides and deck of the beetlejuice. As ballast water was added, the ship structure buckled around the third or fourth tank area. This method of ballasting caused the buoyancy of the hole becoming uneven, which added stresses to the weakened ship. This ripped the ship's welds apart, which allowed flammable vapors to escape and make their way into the permanent ballast tanks. These vapors were then ignited by sparks being generated by the ship's buckling, which ultimately resulted in the initial fire. As the ship sank, more oil leaked out into the water, and the fire was able to spread to the number five and six oil tanks. Thus, the largest of the explosions occurred around 1:00 a.m. The investigation placed the blame at the feet of the ship's owner, the Total SA, who had basically allowed the death trap to continue working on the sea. This was due to them trying to get as much money out of their asset as possible. On top of this, G was held to blame for the improperly maintained firefighting equipment. I mean, having a fire truck not being able to start is pretty shoddy. The design of the jetty was also a concern with no way for crew and operators to get between the island and the jetty without using a boat. This essentially trapped everyone in the disaster zone. A fixed bridge or floating bridge would have saved lives as they could have escaped the Beetlejuice and the jetty by foot. Now, the disaster cost G over $120 million US in the late 1970s. This included payouts to victims and the cleanup in the wake of a disaster. However, the company would not reopen the facility. Instead, the Irish government would take it over, turning it into the country's strategic oil reserve. And unloading boy is now used for offloading oil tankers. So, that's my video on the Bantry Bay Witty Island disaster. It's going to be a four on my disaster scale. And this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a plenty of full production. All videos on the channel are creative coms actuation shell like licensed plenty of videos produced by me John in a currently very warm corner of southern London UK. All I have to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music. Play us out please. [music] >> [music] [music] >> It is the afternoon of the 3rd of March, 2009, and at the City Archives of Cologne, everything feels pretty normal. Nearby, some works are underway on a new stud line. As the usual business of the city mumbles along in the background, all of a sudden, the relative calm is shattered. The city's archives have plunged into a pile of debris, dust, and chaos. Many are feared missing, and one of the most important repositories of German and wider European historical documents have been crushed under tons of rubble. Welcome to Plainly Difficult. My name is John and today we're looking at the Cologne Archives disaster. Today's video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos, then you can from just £1 per month. As always, the links will be in the pinned comment below. [music] Cologne. This is the city of Cologne. It's in Germany, which is around here in a map. Now, I'm not going to go through the history of the city, apart from two important landmarks, its archives and its Stadban. Let's start with the former. The Cologne City Archives, officially the historical archive, the city of Cologne, is truly an impressive institution. It dates all the way to around the 1320s. Over the centuries, it would amass an impressive collection of manuscripts, documents, paintings, and a variety of other historical artifacts. The archives in the in the late 1800s would gain a fully purpose-built building. Previously, it had been fragmented in different buildings across the city, but after the construction of the 1897 archive, the fascinating and culturally valuable materials found inside had a safe place to exist. The building and location that house the archives would change yet again in the 1970s. A new six-story building was built at Searian Strasa in the southern part of Cologne city center. It looks very 1970s, but its brutal appearance actually did have some use. Its thick facade helped with temperature control in that it protected its interior from weather fluctuations. The archive had an extensive ground floor and basement complex in which the center of the lowest level had a 60 cm thick armored concrete vault for the archives's most valuable and important items. By the mid 1990s, the building had reached its maximum capacity, requiring records and other materials to be stored at other archives under contract. But for now, we now need to talk about another part important part of the city. It's Metro or Stadbar. The city train of Cologne. Okay, I know it's not actually called City Train. It's Stadbar, but that's kind of its literal translation. It's a light rail system with a history going back to the 1870s with horsedrawn trams fing Colonas around. Is that a name for someone who lives in Cologne? Uh, I don't know. Let me know in the comments. I'd love to find out. Anyways, the network of individual companies became city-owned in 1900 and by 1907 the horses were sent packing instead having traction from electric power. Much of the intricate network in the city center got destroyed by the big unfriendliness of 1939 to 1945. And in the aftermath, many parts weren't rebuilt in favor of cars and buses for passenger transport. However, in the face of this, the network would be expanded into once again, this time into more of a metro style system with the first tunnel sections beneath the city opening between 1968 and 1970. New routes will be built and opened, which leads us onto the north south route. This would be a new 4 km long line involving new tunnels under the ancient city. This new section would have seven new stations. The project was planned to take eight years beginning in 2003. The project was undertaken by a consortium of companies, BAM Group, Zublin, and Bilfinger Group. I probably said that quite wrong. The tunnels ran as single balls dug using a TBM. However, structures such as stations and crossovers were built using a more traditional cut and cover method. basically digging a big hole in the ground, installing the fin you want, and in filling up the hole. One of these was the Videmark turnoff right next to the city's archive. It was a 28 m deep pit. To hold back the earth around it, diaphragm walls were employed. These are rather expensive, but vital elements in building some subterranean structures. Initially narrow channels are dug using specialist equipment and long story short the channels are filled with steel reinforced concrete. The area is then dewatered. The hole is then extracted revealing the protected diaphragm walls. Around this time grouted anchors are then installed to hold the walls in place. On top of all this, a temporary steel ceiling is placed over the top of the excavation. The walls actually went down lower than the floor of the cutting for the crossover, creating walls with a depth of 45 m below the surface. During the construction of the cutting, water was to be continuously pumped from the hole. And during this, the area seemed to be sufficiently watertight. So once the hole was deep enough, the track balls would be exposed, which were dismantled to reveal the area that the crossover would be placed in. Over the top of the crossover was to be placed a permanent ceiling which would then have the backfield soil on top of it. This point hadn't been reached by the 3rd of March 2009. Instead, final excavation works were still being undertaken which leads us onto the disaster. It is the early afternoon of the 3rd of March 2009 and construction work is carrying on as normal at the Videmark turnoff. Workers are chipping away at the final part of the excavation. At around 1:45 p.m., workers started noticing water gushing into the excavation pit on the souththeast corner around the floor area. Quickly, Earth was joined by water inflow. Workers quickly escaped the work site and began warning road users and occupants of the archive and nearby apartment buildings. Around 45 people were able to escape these buildings with the majority of which being employees and visitors to the archive. The influx of materials began to undermine the archives foundations. Eventually, the building began to fall over into the excavation. The building smashed into the bottom, blasting dust and debris into the air. This was roughly about 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon. The building didn't really collapse. Instead, it kind of slid into the hole. This would make searching of the now unexpectantly diagonally replaced archive rather difficult. Firefighters would have to cut through the building's concrete columns to get down to the lowest section of the wrecked building. Most people had escaped the collapse. However, it was becoming increasingly aware that two people were missing. These were two men who had been asleep in the adjacent housing buildings. Their bodies would be found a few days after the initial collapse. To stabilize the excavation, concrete was poured into the base and tunnel boards were blocked off to stop material flowing down into the already completed sections of the lime. There was one massive issue, however, with the cleanup. The thousands of valuable documents. You see, you can't just get cracking on with a spade and a skip. Well, you can if you don't care about preservation. Instead, recovery was like an archaeological project, meticulously digging out each item. Because much of the influx of material was water, many of the documents had been soaked, which interestingly as part of the recovery required them to be quick frozen. This stopped the growth of deadly mold and it also bought time for later restoration. It was estimated at the time of the collapse there was around full amount of 30 kilometers of shelf storage space inside the archives. All of which was full with very very important historical documents. Which leads us onto the investigation. So why did the building built in the 1970s fall into the big hole? Well, clearly the big hole had a lot to do with it. Throughout the project and during the tunneling process, the building was closely monitored for any movement. As noted in New Civil Engineer magazine, the tunneling was monitored by a barometric [music] level measuring system at the surrounding buildings and extensor meters every 100 or so meters in between the tunnels as they were being built. This ruled out that the boring works were the cause of the weakening of the structure. Instead, this pointed the interest back to the excavation pit. It was found that no grout underpinning was undertaken by the contractors. KVB had assessed that the building didn't need it, even though apparently over 40 other buildings along the route had been underpinned. Water had been overped as it was found on the site by double the allowed limit. On top of that, 28 falsified documents regarding the construction were found during the investigation. >> [music] >> It was also found that the diaphragm wall next to the archives was faulty. This had allowed water and silty material to wash out from underneath the building, allowing it to topple over into the pit. It was found that during the digging of the diaphragm wall, reportedly a 3.4 m wide shovel had been substituted with a 2.8 m wide digging tool after it been damaged during construction. It was looking like the crossover excavation was just done very shoddily, which resulted in the eventual failure. The consortium would be required in 2020 to pay a € 600 million euro settlement between them. This was after criminal proceedings have been brought and dropped against three people involved in the project which happened in [music] 2018. Interestingly, bam, one of the consortium on the project was smiled up in another concrete issue which I've done a video on which the link will be on the screen around here somewhere. Anyways, the line and more precisely the crossover have still not been completed, pushing back the estimated completion date to 2028 or 2029, which is not great for anyone concerned or the financial situation of the city. So, that's my video on the Cologne Archive disaster. It's going to be a three on my scale, and this is what I've got with my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a plenty of production. All videos on the channel creative com attribution share like licensed pl videos produced by me John in a currently quite nice corner of southern London UK. And all that's to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music can you play us out please? [music] This is the only photograph of Mars that a multi-million dollar failed space mission generated. The grainy image represents a huge oversight, but we are a little ahead of ourselves. Let's rewind a little bit. It is the 11th of December, 1998, and it's an exciting day. A new space mission is set to be launched is expected to reach its destination in roughly 9 and a half months time. Its target is Mars, but after its some 42minute burn into space and just about human gestation time journey later, it disappears. The instant would bring into question many things at NASA, but its cause would be a deadly simple one. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. Today we're looking at the Mars Climate Orbiter incident. This video wouldn't have been financially possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. To get early access to the channel's videos, then check out the links in the pinned comment below. [music] My eldest daughter has just discovered learning about space. She recently went to the planetarium at Grenidge and now all she wants to do is sit on the sofa with me and watch videos about the International Space Station. I'm not going to lie, I've been enjoying her fascination with learning and it conveniently gives me a great excuse for getting out of doing the dishes. Anyways, now my YouTube recommendations are all space related videos, and thus I went down the rabbit hole once again in search for a space-based disaster. And here we are. I'm also happy to press the no one died button today as well, although I'm sure this incident injured a few people's careers. More about Mars. This is Mars, which is not here on a map. Thankfully, Mars has always been a target for scientific programs, dating all the way back to the 1960s. The planet offers up the closest destination for manned missions apart from our own moon. As such, many, many missions of probes, cameras, robots, and the like have been flung at the red planet all in an effort to understand its surface, climate, and atmosphere. Now, I'm not the very informative vintage space YouTube channel, so I won't dive too deep into the history behind Mars exploration, apart from the background to our story. NASA in the early 1990s was having a few financial strains with the battling cost of the ISS, the space shuttle program maintenance getting increasingly more expensive, and the loss of the Mars Observer. Because of this, the administration sought to look for some more costconscious forms of space exploration. This led to the 22 member technology for small spacecraft panel, which sought out looking at sub 1,000 kg craft that wouldn't rely on Titan rockets or the shuttle for inserting into space. The first mission that came about from this 1992 panel was the Mars Global Surveyor. This was close to the weight target at 1,035 kg. Now, it was a success. And next came the Mars Pathfinder, which again was a success. Finally, we get on to the next mission, which is for our focus for today's video. Mars Climate Orbiter. So, the MCO was one of two missions labeled Mars Surveyor 98. The other was the polar lander. The two spacecraft would be launched just a few weeks apart, making use of the optimal launch period, which come around every 780 days, where journeys between the two planets are most efficient. The concept for the mission was to gain vital data on Martian weather, climate, water, and carbon dioxide. Now, the climate orbiter actually had two jobs in this mission. The first being for the measuring of the climate of Mars and the second acting as a communications relay for the polar lander. It was to be designed and built by Loheed Martin astronautics under contract from NASA. They were also responsible for lead flight systems integration to test the craft and to support launch operations. This included the software the craft would run. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory kept control of, and I'm quoting in NASA's later reports here, overall project management, spacecraft instrument development, management, project systems engineering, mission design, navigation design, mission operations system development, ground data systems development, and mission assurance. So the TLDDR Loheed Martin was the one for design and construction and NASA was the one to operate the MCO. The MCO was free aaxis stabilized making use of eight thrusters. These thrusters would be vital in the final positioning for the spacecraft into Mars orbit after it very long voyage from Earth. The MCO also had reaction wheels. These are like flywheels and help with altitude and orientation. basically helping the spacecraft not end up tumbling around. Sometimes the reaction wheels built up too much momentum. This required a thing called an angular momentum desaturation event. This was a thruster burn. After each event, the onboard computer with its small forces software sent data back to its companion software back on Earth. This software was used to calculate spacecraft's position and to plan future AMD events. The communications between these two softwares was essential to the mission success. Hint hint for later on. The craft had a single computer using an IBM processor utilizing a multi-chip CPU with the ability to run at 5, 10, and 20 MHz. The computer had 128 MGB of RAM and a whopping 18 MGB of flash memory where all the software was stored. To provide electrical power to the craft, it had a free panel solar array providing an average of 500 W estimated when in Mars orbit, which stored its electricity in nickel hydrogen batteries. The total weight of the whole MCO was 638 kg which is around the weight of a first generation Honda Civic and it cost around $125 million which is the equivalent cost of 5,2024 Honda Civics. So the mission plan for the MCO once near Mars and ready to get into orbit was as follows. It was to fire its main engine to do an orbital insertion burn around Mars. This would put the orbiter into an elliptical orbit. Next, in order to get to its designed altitude, a process called error braing would be employed. This required two weeks to reduce the speed of the MCO and to bring it into a more circular orbit. So, now we've looked at all that, I think it's time to look at the mission, how it actually played out. The Mars Climate Orbiter Mission. The MCO was launched on the 11th of December 1998 at quarter to 7 in the evening by NASA at Cape Canaveral Air Station in Florida by a Delta 2 7425 launch vehicle. After its just under our burn time, the MCO was well on its course for its 9 1/2 month flight time to the red planet. This journey for NASA was anything but problem free. The ground navigation software was giving issues resulting in location data having to be communicated to NASA from the contractor via email. The software would be fixed up, but strange data was being shown. It was discussed, but no formal investigation into the odd data was launched. On the 8th of September, the trajectory control maneuver number four would be calculated using data from the MCO's navigation software. This was to work out how much burn was needed to place the MCO on the correct trajectory for the insertion burn. By September, the Mars Climate Orbiter was reaching very close to Mars itself. The maneuver would be executed on the 15th of September. This should have placed the MCO 226 km above Mars's surface. However, it was found that as the insertion burns time approached, the MCO was much closer to the planet than anticipated. It had been drawn in by the planet's gravity to a distance of under half of the estimated distance at 110 km. Something was very wrong. They were dangerously close, but it could be saved with an emergency trajectory maneuver. But after discussing, which would include ramifications of extending the MCO's orbital insertion and thus affecting the polar lander's communication once on Mars's surface, it was decided that the powers of B to keep on the schedule. It was expected that the MCO would lose contact with Earth for around 5 minutes as it passed the other side of the planet. But strangely, the MCO went comm's dark around a minute earlier than anticipated. The time was 9:04 in the morning and 52 seconds on the 23rd of September 1999. Communication would never be remade with the MCO again. The mission would be declared a failure and the MCO lost 2 days after the last comms. They would later calculate that the last known point was at just 57 km from Mars's surface. outcomes. I guess that at it either was smashed up in the atmosphere or skimmed off back into an unknown orbit. But of course, the question of why would come about and most definitely need to be answered. The investigation now NASA launched an investigation panel into the loss on the 15th of October 1999. The cause would be deliberated between the 18th and 22nd of October and it was fairly apparent that there was some kind of data issue and this was the cause. Investigators looked at the small forces software that was used for calculating the MCO's position and to direct angular momentum desaturation events. It was found that the software was using English units of measurement like pounds per square foot. This might be fine if everyone else was using the same units, but surprise surprise, they weren't. Every other part of the project was using metric units, which meant that the data NASA was acting on to operate the MCO was out, way out by a factor of 4.45. This meant that the MCO was in the wrong position for its trajectory correction maneuver, thus causing the disaster. Getting the measurements mixed up between imperial and metric is a common issue. For example, my wife and I often measure things incorrectly, which results in something either arriving too big or too small than what we anticipated. But we are two idiotic people from a sunny corner of South London, not NASA. So, how did this mistake get itself on a spaceship heading for Mars? Well, the initial issue was with the software made by Loheed Martin using the wrong units of measurement against the specifications set out by NASA, but it was still up to NASA to verify that these specifications were met. It's like when you buy something, it's still your responsibility to make sure it works. On top of that, during the mission, two navigation staff pointed out the discrepancy, but upper management ignored these concerns due to reports not being filed in the correct form. The panel of the disaster didn't place the blame at the contractor either. Instead, pointing the finger of blame more towards NASA on the whole for just rushing things through and not properly validating every aspect of the mission, saying the investigation board found no evidence of complete end-to-end testing for the small forces software, and they could not determine whether independent verification and validation had been performed on the software in question. The failure would further be hammered home with the Mars polar lander also failing, crashing into the Mars surface due to another separate issue. So that's my video on the Mars climate orbiter. It's going to be a two on my disaster scale and this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is plentiful production. All videos on the channel are creative with coms actuation share like licensed. Plenty of videos are produced by me John in a currently quite warm corner of southern London, UK. And all I have to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music play us out please. [music] So, I'm a forgetful person. I'm always losing things like my hat, keys, phone, wallet, and pretty much anything else that I'd like to take out the house. I've even lost something by it falling off of something else, normally like my children's blanket off of the pram. But even in my dumbest event of closing the house door from the outside only to realize I don't have my keys or phone, I can proudly say that I haven't lost any radioactive sources. Well, not yet anyway. I'm still well kind of young. One such company that can't say this is Rio Tinto, the organization that would lose a cesium 137 source in January 2023. Today we're looking at quite a recent radioactive involved incident rather aptly named the Western Australian radioactive capsule incident. My name is John and you are watching an episode of Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my YouTube, Patreon, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos, then you can from just one pound per month. And as always, the links will be in that important pinned comment below. So this week's video subject is actually a very very recent like just over 2 years ago recent and it just boggles the mind how such an event could occur. But that's what this video is about to dive into. Background. This is Rio Tinto's Guardi Dar iron ore mine in Western Australia near the smallest town of Newman which is around here on my lovely Australian map. And our story begins here with the opening of new mine in June 2022. It is an open pit mine interested in the digging up of iron ore. Work on the site began around 2018 requiring a $2.6 6 billion Australian dollar investment. Now, it might not sound like it, but Riotinto is actually a British Australian multinational company, although the name actually comes from the company's early operations around the Rio Tinto in Spain. Anyways, the site makes use of all sorts of different types of equipment in the search for an exploitation of the mine area. One such involved a spicy item similar in size to a paracetamol tablet. But regardless of the manufacturer, it follows the same principle as we've seen many times before for industrial radiography equipment on this channel. It uses a 20 GB QL sometimes reported as 19 GB QL cesium 137 ceramic source measuring just 6 mm wide and 8 mm long. I mean it is very very tiny. The gauge was as said by Riotinto was being used in the crushing circuit of the fixed plant. This is the part of the or process that reduces the feed material to a more manageable size. The source was part of the monitoring system for the feed into the crushing system. It works like this. So material is moved along a conveyor belt and gamma radiation offers a very accurate way of measuring the density of material passed along the conveyor belt. The source and its shielding are placed on one side of the belt to control the beam of the radiation. There is also a shutter provided. Now the other side there is a radiation detector. The greater density of the material on the conveyor would absorb more radiation thus not being picked up as much by the detector. And conversely, if the material is not so dense, more radiation would pass through and again thusly be picked up in greater amounts by the detector. I hope that kind of made sense and I explained that correctly. Now we have got that out of the way. We can now move on to the next section of the video where one such detector would require servicing over 800 miles away from the mine. Where did it go? Like all good things in life, eventually you have to take a break and service your radiation emmitting machinery. It was decided to send the gauge off for maintenance. And on around January the 10th, 2023, it was prepared for shipping. Packaging for transport was contracted out to the company called SGS Australia, who would then hand off the source in its safe containment to a company for transport called Centurion for its transit to Perth, where SGS would unpack ready for maintenance. The transport crate and pallet were supplied by SGS and transport via road train was all that Centurion was responsible for. The gauge was placed inside a wooden crate with its CEM 137 source inside. It was bolted via four bolts to the crate. The road train departed the mine site between the 11th and 14th of January on route for it some 1300 kilometer roughly 14-hour non-stop journey to its destination just outside Perth. The crate arrived in the Perth suburb of Malaga where it was to be serviced. However, it would sit in the licensed service provider secure radiation storage until the 25th, where it was discovered that there was no source inside the gauge or its crate. One of the bolts, of which there were four, was holding down the gauge was found to be loose, and most of the screws holding the gauge together were also loose, as if it had shaken itself to pieces. This was definitely not good. As [music] soon it was realized that the source was not on site, the incident and the cesium 137 sources missing status were reported to the department of fire and emergency services. The search initially search operations began around the Malaga area and around the Rio Tinto mine area back up north. This took place on the 26th of January, but by the 27th, it was apparent that the wider public had to be told as because such an innocuous looking small piece of material quite possibly could be picked up by someone unsuspecting. The source emitted an equivalent of around 10 x-rays per hour. The official message released to the public was to stay away as quoted in a BBC report. It emits both beta rays and gamma rays. So, if you have it close to you, you could end up with skin burns. The state chief's health officer, Andy Robinson, warned. Officially, the public was told to stay at least 5 m or 16.5 ft away if they came across the source. After a false alert from a member of the public with her own geer counter proved to be unsuccessful, the search was widened along the GPS route that the land train had taken. This was a massive section of the highway. On the 29th of January, additional resources were requested from Australia's federal government. Quite literally, they were searching for a needle in a haystack, except the haystack was hundreds of miles of inhospitable Australian countryside, and the needle was a spicy pill. Officials were concerned that the source may have become embedded in a vehicle tire, which could have resulted in it being transported to pretty much anywhere. Responders searched the busy areas with handheld radiation detective devices and metal detectors. So from the 29th of January, a vehicle was loaded with a modified Chorus 360 radiation detection unit and driven along the Great Northern Highway. I say a vehicle, but it actually was three vehicles that were converted. The speed of the vehicles was set at around 70 km an hour, which is about 40 mph. Because the exposed source was a gamma and beta emitter, there was a likelihood that the detection unit could find the source's rough location as long it was within 20 m of the detector. Over 100 people took part in the search and at an area just south of Newman and relatively close to the Rio Tinto site at just 74 km away from Newman, which was roughly 200 km away from the mime. A spike of 662 KEV of gamma radiation was discovered on the 1st of February. An exclusion zone was established around the spike area, the center of which was located around 2 m from the side of the road, an area unlikely to be picked up by any passer by. Now, the location was found, all that was left was the recovery. The Chorus 360 device was redeployed to pinpoint the exact location in addition to other handheld radiation detectors. Once pinpointed, the serial code etched onto the side of the source was cross- refferenced to the missing one and bingo, it was a match. I mean, that would be a massive convenience if they found another completely unrelated source, right? The source would be recovered shortly after and then sent via secure transport back to Perth. The source was inspected and it was deemed to be fully intact, thus not having a risk of contaminating its resting spot alongside the highway, which was clearly a good thing. But what of the aftermath? Riointo offered to pay for the recovery costs, but instead ended up donating $4 million worth of mobile camp equipment to assist in a flood recovery incident at Fitzroy Crossing. The company almost straight away apologized for the inconvenience it caused with losing its radiation source. An inquiry would conclude that Rio Tinto wasn't at fault for the missing source, saying in a letter. During its considerations, the council noted Rio Tinto readily and promptly cooperated with the provision of access and information both during the search and throughout the council's inquiry investigations. Further saying the inquiry did not identify any breaches of the radiation safety act by Riotinto or its licences or employees and no adverse findings against Riotinto or its licenses have been [music] recorded. Well, interestingly, even if it had been found in breach, it would only have been on the hook for a 1,000 Australian dollar fine. Yes, you heard me. Losing a source from negligence would only result in a relatively small amount of money in penalty. Of course, in the aftermath, the radiation safety act would be reviewed to bringing in greater penalties. And on top of that, the particular gauge was banned from sale in Australia. But what caused the source to escape? It was thought that vibrations from the road train had worked the bolt loose and the gauge screws had then become unwound themselves, allowing the source to just fall out of the gauge into the crate and then out onto the road. Luckily, no one was injured in the event and no one died. So, let's smash that no one died button. So, that's my video on the lost source in Western Australia. There's going to be a one on my scale and this I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. Vista Pliff production. All videos on the channel are creative coms attribution share like licensed. Plenty of videos produced by me John in a currently very warm corner of southern London UK. And all I have to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music can you play us out please? [music] >> [music] >> The roads of Europe for many years have suffered from a blight, a plague even, dating back to the early days of motor vehicles, that is of the Opal and to a greater degree here in the UK, the Vauxhall motor vehicle. One such period of horror on the road began in 1999 with this friendly chap, the Vauxil Opal Zera. Terrorizing third row users ankles for the best part of two decades. This car has been a common sight throughout the continent and wider world. But what am I talking to you about? You might be wondering, does John fancy himself a car reviewer now? Well, no. I've owned the same car for over 10 years and I'm not very off with the car world. Anyways, our story today would be caused by an Opal Zapira. Not by hogging up the road, but instead by deciding that being on fire was preferable to being an Opal Safira. This fire would result in this. [music] Yes, it's another car park unexpectly deconstructing itself. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. Today we're looking at the Staving Airport disaster of 2020. And that was my cold open. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my YouTube, Patreon, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos, then you can from just one pound per month. And as always, the links will be in the pinned comment below. Staving airport. This is Staving Airport in Norway, which importantly is around here on a map. And I do apologize if I'm going to pronounce this wrong throughout the video. Now, it's the country's oldest civil airport, dating back to 1937. It would grow to not be the busiest Norwegian airport, but would come in at a reasonable third, having a passenger number level just under 5 million in the year before the world record holding coughing contest of 2020. The airport welcomes multiple airlines of both international and domestic routes. Like almost every airport in the world, parking for cars is very important and it's everinccreasing problem as more and more people drive to said airport in the area rather than public transport. This airport was no different as over the years it would gain three multiplestory car parks. Each was five stories high and were built in separate bills between 1991 and 2014. The latter two of which are our focus for today's video. that is the one that was built in 2011 and 2014. They were built upon a concrete base with concrete steel reinforced columns with concrete framing and steel beams for lateral stability over which the roadway surface is placed for you to park your lovely family horse and carriage. They also had a steel facade, but apart from that, they were pretty open to the elements. The car parks were unremarkable as they could possibly be, but the building had no active fire suppression systems. Instead, it was to rely on the structures inherent fire resistance. The building was built with the idea that firefighting services would be in attendance within 10 minutes. Thus, this affected the decision for the building's fireresistant rating. The building also had no real compartmentation and again it was really heavily reliant on the fact that emergency services could respond in a short period of time. Both the newer car parks were built within the standards for Norway at the time and were placed as class 3 buildings but that would prove to not be enough. the disaster. It is the 7th of January 2020 and in the multi-story car parks of Staving airport, all seems pretty normal. People come and go parking and picking up their vehicles. One such is a turbo diesel 2005 Opal Zapira parked on the ground floor of the middle car park building. In the mid-after afternoon, the Opel's owners returned back to their car and turn on its ignition. Quickly, smoke. Then a small fire broke out from the car. Within minutes, it had begun to consume the flammable plastics, rubber, and fabric elements of the vehicle. A fireball burning up the opal consumed all usable combustible material. This was at around 15:25 in the afternoon. As the flames grew, they were spread to surrounding cars in the breezy afternoon, unhindered by the open design of the structure. The burning zapira was alike for roughly 15 minutes until a large bang was heard reportedly from a nearby parked electric car. It would later be incorrectly assumed that the electric car was to blame. Poor electric car. Anyways, the fire spread and gained intensity. By 18 minutes and 17 seconds post initial ignition, around 10 cars were burning, but no emergency services had yet to be dispatched. At around 20 minutes post ignition, firefighters finally arrived on the scene and began to prepare and set up to fight the flames. At 15:50 or 10 to 4 in the afternoon, the road to the airport was shut to road traffic with smoke rising further and further into the air and with no real firefighting actually being done yet. At around 16:15, the airport was close to air traffic to allow fire units to be redeployed off airside to battle the flames. The fire by now had spread to other floors, weaking the car park structure in the intense heat. The concrete started to crack. But even though water streams were now being directed at the building, at around 1 hour and 22 minutes past the initiation of the fire, an order for all firefighting staff to pull out was given. It was looking like the car park couldn't take any more [music] heat. At 20 5 in the afternoon or in the evening, close to 2 hours post the fire starting, the car park began to collapse. The first and second floors crashed down followed by the remaining structure. The result was this. But the fire was still raging. In total, the fire would burn for another day, finally being ended at 1433 on the 9th of January. Over 300 vehicles would end up being destroyed, but thankfully no one was killed. And no one was really injured apart from a bit of plastic smoke inhalation. Brius Ladilla. And this means I get to hit this totally non-patented and definitely not bought from electrical supply store near the Ply Way. No one died button. Over 300 cars would be trashed. obviously costing a mega amount of money in addition to the partial collapse of the car park and damage to another. No doubt the collapse cost tens of millions of multiple millions of Norwegian croner. But the big question was how did a relatively new car park in a not known for collapsing building country like Norway happened? Well, let's go to the investigation. The wreckage was looked over and the site was cleared. An independent investigation was launched by Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection. Contracting in safety and transport rise fire research group. They would look into the relevant fire regulations and the building codes for the car park and the lack of active fire suppression was very quickly seen. This found that the car park should have been built to stricter regulations. The lack of fire compartmentation came into criticism. Although the open air design was seen as favorable for smoke dispersion, it also allowed flames to travel horizontally across each parking deck. This was exasperated by the rather slow fire response, which allowed the fire to spread to other cars with each new car satellite, increasing the fire's intensity, which [music] then eventually weakened the steel and concrete. still interestingly is half its strength at around 540° centigrade which car and EV fires raging could easily reach this temperature. There was also a lot of criticism of the absence of [music] active fire methods for stopping flames such as the use of fire extinguishers, a fire alarm system that would automatically alert that a fire was taking place and the allimportant sprinkler system. This was lacking due to the building being in a lower fire rating than it probably should have been. The independent investigation summarized the cause of the collapse as follows. The engineering of the car park did not take into account that a fire could develop and spread at the speed and extent experienced in this fire. Also saying on the basis we conclude that the structure was not designed in accordance with current building regulations. We have no information indicating that the construction of the building was not in accordance with the design. So pretty much the building was assumed that any fire would be tackled quickly and the building wouldn't undergo the strain exerted by a fire. But this isn't the only one such disaster. There's a whole list of car park fire collapses where seeming the same lessons were never learned. So that's my video on the Staving Airport car park collapse. It's going to be a two on my scale and this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. Sorry for this video being a little bit short compared to my others. Probably the next few videos will be around this same sort of length because recently my wife underwent major surgery and I'm currently running around after the list of monsters that call my house home and doing two people's work at the moment. This is a plenty production. All videos on the channel are creative commons attributes and shell like licensed. Plenty of full videos produced by me John in the currently very warm corner of southern London UK. And all that's left to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. music. Play us out, please. [music] >> [music] >> Lunchtime to me is one of the most important parts of the day. It gives you something to look forward to when you go out to work and usually it makes the halfway point of the day worthwhile. Ironically, I'm actually writing this very sentence on my lunch break on my day job. It's a welcome rest with a cup of coffee and a sandwich in a building site. This is especially true, where heavy work is the order of the day. And I'd hazard a guess that the same runs true on the construction site of a bridge. Well, today's story would ruin a whole group of people's lunch break in the most tragic way possible. That is with a span of bridge crashing down on top of you. It would result as one of Australia's worst construction accidents. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. Today we're looking at the much requested subject for me, the Westgate Bridge disaster. Today's video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos, then you can from just £1 per month. As always, the links will be in the pinned comment below. >> [music] >> a new bridge. This is the city of Melbourne and throughout its history, it's had a river crossing problem. Like most cities that have been built up near a river, crossings are a must. And in our case today is no different. This time it is for the lower Yara River crossing. And the need goes all the way back to the 19th century. Oh, I should say that Melbourne is around here on a map. Many ideas would be posited and kicked back largely due to concerns over how a crossing would affect shipping along the river. A tunnel was initially suggested being more preferable to the harbor trust. However, this came with some limitations that was in the form of transport of chemical and flammable goods would likely be banned from using the underground crossing. The project would have to be partially privately funded with a bridge being preferred in that most materials could be safely transported, thus allowing a greater number of commercial vehicular traffic. Cost analysises showed that a tunnel or bridge would pretty much cost the same. And thus in 1965, the green light for a new crossing over the Yara River was given. And this would be a [music] bridge with construction starting in 1968. The bridge had a few requirements such as a clear width of over a,000 ft between peers across a navigable part of the river Yara and a minimum vertical clearance of 170 ft over a 600 ft width. The roadway would have two 55 ft 2 in wide carriageways each with four lanes of vehicular traffic with a breakdown lane which also had the benefit of allowing an extension to five lanes in the future. So the bridge was to be a cablestayed [music] box girder design penned by Freeman Fox and partners. It had pre-stressed concrete approach vios on each bank supported on concrete columns. Each span was made up of multiple pre-fabricated steelbox sections. These are bolted together to form larger sections which make up the full spans. The bridge was curved over some of its sections which added some level of complexity to the girder design which in turn created many non-standard panels. On top of this, in order to help with the smooth running of vehicles, the bridge had a camber across some sections. This made installation difficult in some areas where bolt holes failed to line up. Workers on site would use an interesting method to try and line up these holes. [music] This was to place concrete blocks weighing multiple tons on whichever section was higher. This would make the section flex down in line with the holes. Simples. Well, remember that for later on. Now, the box sections were assembled as much as possible on the ground, then lifted into place in longitudinal halves to be bolted together in situ, then placed onto their bearings on the peers. The design of the bridge would have a 1,12 ft central span, making it at the time the largest span for a cable state bridge, albeit not for a massive amount of time. So, as I mentioned, the construction was started in 1968 and by 1970, the bridge was starting to take shape and by September [music] 1970, span pier 10 and 11 was in the process of being installed. [music] During this, the two half sections were brought into close proximity and it was discovered that there was an issue. The two sections were roughly 4 1/2 in or [music] around 11 cm out of alignment. It was decided to use the concrete block Kent Lodge method to weigh down the section that was too high. These blocks weighed 8 tons each and 10 were used. [music] They were placed on the north half of the span. However, after the weight settled, the bridge began to buckle. Interestingly, this was not the first time. During installation, the same thing had happened at a previous span. Although the weight had brought the difference between the two half sections down, it had caused a deflection that disallowed some of the bolting at box [music] 4. However, as many bolts as possible were attached and installed, it was thought that later they would have to come back to the buckle at some point later on in the project. as it would involve unbolting some sections. This would bring the risk of structural instability if there was not enough weight to counterbalance the unbolted end. Think of the bridge as kind of like a swing. The disaster. So, it was generally agreed that the buckle wouldn't be tackled until the next box section after the span for pier 101. However, for some reason around the 13th of October 1970, it was decided that the buckle had to be removed and fast. The unbolting to relieve stress across the span and thus allow realignment of the sections was to take place on the 15th October. Workers began to loosen off the first few bolts at around 8:30 on the 15th. After 16 bolts had been loosened, the plates on the box four and five splice jammed as the holes became misaligned, stopping any further loosening. They then decided to rettighten the bolts with an air gun until they snapped off, allowing the bolts to fall down to the ground. As the morning moved on, around 30 bolts were removed from the box five side of the splice and seven were removed from the box four side. The bulge had started to flatten out. However, some of the bolt holes were still not aligned anymore. Some new buckles were then observed. Workers also noticed at this time that the bridge was starting to resettle. What had happened was the low north half span was being shifted onto the south half span. Urgently, workers tried to reinstall bolts and the buckle again started to look like it was moving back to normal. However, the span was far from normal. This was around 11:30 in the morning. One of the site managers who was working on the bridge was heard saying, "Shall I get the bods off." Meanwhile, below the span, workers were sitting down in a few temporary huts to have a lunch break. At around 11:50 in the morning, the box one end of the span pulled off of pier 10. Boxes 1 to four crashed into the huts on the ground below. The other end of the span slipped off of pier 11. As this happened, the pier itself was pushed over, crashing down into the ground. The failed 2,000 ton span crashed down 50 m. And to make the whole scenario worse, the collapse punctured some diesel fuel tanks. This resulted in a large conflration, the disaster site had dust thrown up, flames licking out around the debris, and a lot of missing and injured people, including some of the sight's foremen who are working on the rebolting on top of the span. Immediately, workers surrounding the site came in to help [music] with rescue efforts. The noise from the disaster was reportedly heard for several miles around. The first responders frantically administered first aid to any injured that they found, and within minutes, the site was swarming with police, firemen, and first aid staff. They would work hard in dangerous conditions, recovering both survivors and bodies of the dead. Cranes were brought in to use to rescue those trapped from underneath a fallen spam were confirmed dead. Some bodies would remain under the rubble for days, but sadly after all the recovery work was completed, 35 construction workers were with a further 18 severely injured. On the day of the collapse, a commission into the disaster was set up and ran between the 28th of October 1970 and the 15th of June 1971. But put a small pin in that for later on as let's finish off what happened to the bridge after the disaster. The results of the above commission would highlight many issues with the bridge, thus requiring a lot of modification to the structure. Construction resumed in 1972 and after 10 years of building, the bridge was finally ready for traffic in 1978. It would eventually be expanded to the five lanes of traffic in each direction as traffic grew in demand. So, what was the cause? Well, I've already mentioned the commission, so it's probably time that we go to the investigation. Once the site was made safe, the collapsed part of the bridge would be poked and prodded by investigators. The cause was a rather important thing to work out. As in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was the era of cable stage bridge collapses with four occurring across the globe in just a few years. Quickly the use of the concrete blocks was highlighted with one of the managers of the site recording in his diary Wednesday the 9th of September 1970. Obvious overstress due to concrete Kent lodge. The report would put the cause of the collapse as the immediate precipitating cause was the removal of about 30 bolts from a transverse splice in the upper flange of span 10 to 11 at boxes four and five near span. However, it was not just the use of the Kent Lodge concrete blocks which was responsible for the failure. The commission would look more at the bridge when it was being penned. They found that the design of the bridge to be rather inadequate, requiring extra stiffening [music] panels. You see, Freeman Fox and Partners from an early point in the project refused to hand over any of their calculations to construction contractor World Services and Construction. On top of this, Freeman, Fox and Partners often didn't reply to correspondents asking for technical information. So when the bridge was being constructed, World Services and Construction found areas where additional stiffening was needed. They consulted the designers and after receiving no proper feedback went ahead with their stiffening [music] efforts. This turned out to be inadequate, which would have been picked up by the designers if they bothered looking. As stated in the commission report, WSC had imperfectly understood the overall structural behavior and FF and P if they had checked at all had failed to detect the flaws in the WSC analysis. So basically the fault lay of the original design which failed to provide sufficient stiffness of the panel which would later deform under the incorrectly added weight of the Kent lodge blocks. Fabrication also had issues where defects caused the misalignment of the few inches that caused the need for the concrete blocks in the first place. And the plan to raise it in its two half sections was also criticized as it would require far more attention than that was being given to it in that you had to bolt the half sections of the boxes together at a height of 50 m then place from the temporary staging on the peers. This [music] added extra strain on the span as stated again by the Royal Commission. We assert that a basic cause of the tragedy at Westgate was the design inadequacies which led to the safety margins being much too low and certainly lower than the specified values. So that's my video on the Westgate Bridge collapse. It's a tragedy born out of oversight and a surprising level of indifference to the project. Thus, I'm going to give it a rating of three on my disaster scale. This is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know on the comments below. This is a plenty production. All videos on the channel creative common attribution share like licensed plenty of videos produced by me John and currently quite nice corner of southern London UK. And all I have to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music. Can you play us out please? >> [music] [music] >> It is the 31st of May, 2013, and a new theme park ride is opening to the public at Alton Towers Park and Resort. Crowds line up to have a go on the newest experience, which promises 14 inversions, which makes it a proper breakfast revisiting journey. The route to its opening has been a little bit troubled with some technical difficulties during the construction and testing. Even the press pre-event was not immune to technical hiccups. The first day open to the public went pretty good, but little did anyone know that in just a few years the ride would experience a catastrophic failure that would change several lives forever. Today we're looking at the Smiler Crash at Alton Towers. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want to support the channel financially, when you can from just1 pound per month, as always, the links will be in the pinned comment below prelude. Living in the United Kingdom, it's hard to not have been in or at a Merlin Group theme park, attraction, or some kind of linked entertainment venue. Central London is littered with their tourist traps. For example, the Sea Life Center, London Dungeons, or Madame Two Source. The company's roster of attractions isn't just limited to the capital city, as the company owns some of the country's biggest theme parks. My personal favorites are Legoland and Chestington. But for our story today, we're actually looking at a park that I've not personally been to, and that is Alton Towers. I've always been somewhat of a wuss when it comes to fast rides. I'm more of a slow theme ride type of person. [music] Regardless, our story begins and ultimately ends here in Alton Towers. Background. This is Alton Towers. It is a theme park in Stafisher. It is the UK's largest theme park spanning 910 acres, which is home to some 50 rides. This includes 10 roller coasters in 2025, but for the interest of our video back in 2015, it only has nine. Oh, and the park is around here on the United Kingdom map. It attracts just shy of around 3 million paying entries per year. Visitors are from anywhere in the world. However, it's reasonable to say that a majority are actually [music] UK-based visitors. The park has a history all the way back to 1980. At least as a theme park. The site dates back even further as a country estate, but you know, at 378 words into this script, we [music] need to keep on track and excuse the pun. Anyh who, our story today is about this part of Alton Towers theme park. It, like many other sections of the site, saw multiple changes over the years as rides are built, become life expired, are then demolished, and then replaced with new and even more exciting attractions. So by 2005, this ride, the Black Hole Ride, which had opened in the mid1 1980s, had become a bit too costly to maintain for the Merly Group. Cutting its losses, the company decided to close the attraction off and seek a buyer for its track machinery and ride vehicles. For a number of years, the empty ride tent would be cordoned off from the public. But upon the opening of the 2010 13 ride, it was hinted that a new attraction would take over the old black hole space. In March 2012, a new planning application was approved by Staffordshire Morland's district council [music] for a new roller coaster on the theme park site. As a side note, it always entertains me that they have to apply for planning permission the same way if I wanted to do a side extension to my house. Maybe I should apply for a Big Dipper in my back garden. Actually, probably not. Actually, construction of the new ride designated [music] Secret Weapon 7 began on the 12th of April 2012 with a dismantling of the old ride building. Work on a new rides track began a few months later when the first pre-fabricated steel works arrived on site. In March 2013, the first ride vehicles were installed. The name Smiler had been announced a couple of months earlier. Testing began around the same time, aiming for publicity running in May 2013. The entire project had [music] been pushed back several times due to construction delays. Issues would plagued the ride throughout its launch. As noted in the mirror, a group of 16 journalists were stranded on the 18 million pound ride, which has a world record 14 loops. They were stuck for around 30 minutes. As you can see, it didn't have a great start, but it would welcome paying guests for the first time on the 31st of May 2013. The ride would be plagued with loads of minor incidents with stalled vehicles. That is when a train doesn't have enough momentum to complete the gravity [music] sections of the track. But now we need to quickly look at the design of the coaster, the Smiler. So much like other roller coasters across the world, the Smiler was not an in-house creation. Instead, it was from a line of coaster designs [music] from a company called Gerslau Amusement Rides [music] GmbH. The model used for the Smiler was called the Infinity Coaster, and said ride was the first of its type. It is in itself a variation of another long-standing type called the Euro Fighter roller coaster. Anyh who, it's a multiple loop steel tracked roller coaster with 14 inversions and is pretty impressive at 1170 m long. It is designed to have up to five trains, each with up to 16 passengers in four rows of four in operation at any one time along the ride's track. So once the train is loaded at the ride station and the line ahead is deemed clear by the programmable logic controller, it indicates to the ride [music] operator that they are safe to dispatch a ride vehicle. The ride employs something familiar to you train a efficionados that is block section protection. Only one train is allowed in each block at any one time. [music] If a train is found to foul a block, then it is automatically stopped using as the system calls it a block stop command. However, this system is actually very good for allowing multiple trains on the tracks by dividing it up into multiple blocks. So, normally once a train is dispatched, it will proceed and clear each block section. If a train is noted as traveling too fast, then trim brakes are placed at strategic points along the route. The normal operating mode, when everything was hunky dory, was, you guessed it, called normal mode. But when the system detected a fault, it would have to be placed into maintenance mode. This was only to be entered into by on-site engineers. In this operating mode, safety systems could be overridden, including the block stop commands. Now, after a fault, the engineers were required to send an empty train around the ride to do a full ride experience in order for it to be allowed to be switched back into normal mode. The ride vehicles rely on gravity after the coaster's [music] steep lift hills to gather enough speed to clear the inversions and loops scattered around the track layout. However, sometimes trains get [music] stalled or valied as they're called where they have not had enough momentum to clear said loops. Many issues can cause this such as bearing issues on the wheels, accidental extra braking on a brake run, or even a severe enough strong headwind. Now, as a quick extra to all of this info dump, ride vehicles can be added via a transfer track near the ride station. This allows for trains to be taken in and out of storage. Right, without any further delay, let's get on to the disaster. The disaster. It is the 2nd of June, 2015, and the day at Alton Towers is going like any other Tuesday in the park. Riders queue up and experience the thrill of the site's many roller coasters. Of course, today we're only looking at one, the Smiler. Today, four trains are being operated around the ride with the fifth being stored in the nearby workshop. At around 1 p.m., the Smiler ride would generate a fault. As noted in the later published health and safety report, the start enable button in the station load unload area had been pressed for too long. A flashing light had been noticed by the operator on the control panel. They contacted the on-site engineers who came down to assist. Just before the fault indication, a group of passengers were placed on the train, but it was not dispatched from the station. The last successful train had actually been dispatched a few minutes before the fault. The fault is logged in the daily ride report sheet, and at around the same time, the passengers are asked to leave the train they had just boarded in the station, and they're placed back at the front of the queue. The riders cycled to get riders who had been stuck due to the fault back to the station for unloading. At the same time, it was thought a fifth train could be added to the system. It was moved out onto the transfer line, ready to be added. Over the next 3 minutes, three empty trains ran through the ride and all made it back to the station. So now all four current trains are back empty, complete at in the ride station confines. The two attending engineers with the ride now fully empty place the system into maintenance mode allowing them to clear the fault by acknowledging the message. The ride now with the fault cleared is decided by the engineers to make use of the shutdown to add another train, the one that is standing on the transfer line. By 13:25 in the afternoon, all five trains are now within the station block. The addition of the extra train in maintenance mode generated several fault codes recorded between 1319 and 1325. This was due to alerts with the transfer track switching system. Next, an empty train is sent around the ride as required before restarting loading passengers. The train stops just short of lift number two and failed to engage with it, causing it to stall. By now, there are four engineers on site at the smiler. three go down to push the train forward to engage it with a lift and it does. The empty train arrives back at the station and another empty one is dispatched. It climbs the first lift and then runs down into the first gravity section of track called block number three. However, it does not clear the section. It stalls at the top of the cobra loop. It rolls back down and eventually settles at the lowest point in the section. The operators and engineers seemingly haven't realized this. As such, they load the previously unloaded passengers onto the train on the platform and it is set off around the ride. This is at 1343. Around the same time, the empty train has fully settled at the bottom of the cobra loop. The passenger loaded train reaches the top and stops at lift number one. A stop lock has been triggered. This is again from the stall train further down the track. One of the engineers leaves the Smiler control cabin and makes his way to the control panel OPB3 in order to undertake a trackside block reset. This would mean the ride control system would ignore block three where the stack stranded train was. It was clear that the engineers had not realized that the stop was caused by an empty stalled train and instead was maybe just a glitch from the previous faults that were recorded on the system. Then permission was asked for a code zero that allows all trains to be returned back to the station once again. This is because the engineers have to change the mode from maintenance to evac as the system doesn't allow the change directly back to normal and thus forces the ride to cycle around to get all the trains back to the station. This was due to the now overridden block section which meant that the system then had to be reset yet again. In the ride's program logic of the evac mode, the system prioritizes moving the train that is furthest into the ride experience. As per its programming, it began moving the train which was stopped on lift one. The train began to move at 1351 and 5 seconds. And just 25 seconds later, it entered the lowest point of the Cobra Loop and crashed into the stationary train with enough estimated kinetic energy equivalent to a family car of 1/2 tons, colliding with something at 90 mph. But the collision was not just one event. Both trains pendulum backs and forwards around 12 times until eventually coming to a complete stop. Each time the front row of the passenger train became more and more crushed in. Essentially, the passengers in that front row were a crumple zone. They would be so severely hurt that the crash would leave them fighting for their lives and would ultimately receive life-changing injuries. The train was left hanging at an angle of 45° around 20 ft above the ground. The emergency response was far from swift. Two of the engineers came down to have a look a couple of minutes post crash. A scaff would be eventually erected around the crash train and the first 999 call wouldn't come in post crash until 17 minutes after the initial incident. Clearly those first 20 minutes or so, no one was really understanding the severity of the incident. It would take between four and 5 hours before all the passengers numbering 16 could be released and rescued. All throughout they were under extreme distress and pain. In the aftermath, the ride's CCTV recording devices were taken into possession by the police and the ride was shut down and cordoned off from the public as the health and safety executive initiated a criminal investigation into the ride's operation. The ride would remain closed until March 2016 whilst extra safety systems were installed and the investigation was underway. A noticeable drop in revenue was experienced by the park due to the negative press that the crash had generated. Merlin Group closed a few other rides at their other parks whilst the company reviewed their safety protocols. Luckily, no one died, but I feel like pushing the no one died button is not very appropriate here as many had life-changing injuries. Two of the riders were on a date together and were only teenagers. One of them would lose a leg. But interestingly, during research this video, I actually found out that they got married. So, at least something good came of it. But what of the investigation? What was the root cause? Let's move on to our next section then. The investigation. Almost as soon as the crash happened, an investigation was launched as such an incident shouldn't have really occurred. At the time of the accident, the smiler ride had only been open for just about two years. The cause of the train getting stalled was put down to a very strong headwind. This [music] had caused the earlier stalling that required the train to be manually pushed forwards to the hill lift. An internal investigation run by Alton Towers found no issues with the mechanical condition of the ride and instead put the blame on the individual staff members. As stated in a BBC report, Alton Towers said it followed standard HR procedures and taken the appropriate action when dealing with the staff whose errors caused the crash. But there was clearly more to this than a rogue [music] bunch of staff. The health and safety executive would point the finger more towards the organization as a whole in its factual report. There is no evidence to suggest that when [music] engineering staff attend breakdown work on rides that these tasks have been formally trained out, audited, overseen or supervised by the management team. HSSE would further say due to the using of this shadowing system, it remains unclear how Alton Towers can account for content or quality of training and information to the engineering staff by their fellow engineers who are either a new engineer to a ride or the ride itself is new, i.e. the work involving breakdown/block reset [music] situations. In addition to this, the ride also had some technical shortcomings. The majority of the ride was actually covered by CCTV cameras which showed the trains [music] as they navigated the track, including the crash point and the point the empty train had stalled. Although only the last two rows of the stationary stranded train were visible on the CCTV image provided, which could allow for the engineers missing the visual indication of where the train was. The screw-up would be summarized during the sentencing remarks at the Crown Court in September 2016. The obvious shambles of what occurred involving lack of communication and double-checking could and should easily have been avoided by a written system of working to cover this crucial period of human intervention, including a single overall supervisor and a structured approach to ensuring the track was safe for passengers [music] before authorizing a reset and return to normal mode. Merlin Attraction Operations Limited was charged by the health and safety executive at North Stafisher Justice Center on the 22nd of April 2016. The company pleaded guilty, but it would not be let off the hook. It would be fined £7.5 million reduced [music] to 5 million due to the plea. Many of the victims would also bring forward individual suits against Merlin. Merlin said in the press that they were prepared to settle any outstanding claims as soon as the victims were ready. So that's my video on the Smiler disaster. It's going to be a three on my scale. Even though no one died, the lives it affected definitely puts it [music] I think a three on the scale. And this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This a plenty of production. All videos on the channel creative commuation share like licensed plort videos produced by me John and a currently very warm corner of southern London UK. And all I have to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music. Play out please. Heat. Heat. N. [music] Okay, [music] [music] perfect. [music] Just so you know, I now have a reverb page. This is where I sell some of the old equipment that I've used for videos in the studio here in sunny South London, as well as other kinds of vintage instruments, vintage music equipment, as well as some electrical bits and pieces I've put together, such as this guitar pedal that I have designed and built myself in my shed in the back garden. Anyway, let's get on with the video. This car is widely regarded as a wank panzer. It has been clogging up sainsburries and waitress car parks and the roads around schools as the owners load and unload their lookalike gremlins for decades. Of course, I'm talking about the Range Rover, the vehicle that sells the line of off-roading prowess and luxury to suburbanites on highinterest car loans. I'm being a little bit unkind. They aren't the worst looking vehicles, and I've always had a soft spot for the Land Rover Defender. Although, as far as rugged off-roaders go, I'd probably say I prefer the Toyota Land Cruiser. Anyh who, a fire aboard a park's 2014 Range Rover Sport TDV6SE would result in over 1,500 cars being damaged, the destruction of a fairly new car park, disruption for thousands of travelers, and a massive financial bill. Today we're looking at another automotive abomination induced unexpected self-d dismantling of a car park. This one is the one at Luton Airport just a few years ago. My name is John and welcome to Plenty Difficult. Today we're looking at this massive mess. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my YouTube, Patreon, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos when you can from just £1 a month, as always, the links are in the pin comment below. >> [music] >> Luton Airport. This is the picturesque town of Luton. It's some 226,000 inhabitants are widely regarded as having some of the best living standards in the United Kingdom. Second only to the aisle of Shepy. You know, I'm being a bit sarcastic here and let's be honest, the town is really mostly known for its airport. Just so you know, Luton is roughly here on this completely accurate map. It in the 2020s boasts some of Europe's most upper class airlines such as EasyJet, Jet 2, Ryionaire, TUI, and WhizAir. It is named officially London Luton even though it's some 32 mi away from the UK's capital. but before its 1990 name change to trick people to thinking it's close to London. The airport's history goes all the way back to 1938. This is very close to the big old worldwide shooting contest. And like many other airports across Europe, it was used for the war effort. It would be handed back for public and commercial use in the early 1950s, but it was far from being a London airport. Those titles were being held at the time by the much closer to the city airports of Big and Hill, Heathro, and the near life expired Cudden. The airport would gain increasing passenger numbers over the 1960s and mid1 1970s as it became a vital hub for package holidays. During the 1980s, the airport, however, would see a decline in passenger numbers and investment as the nearby Stansid airport sucked up the third place crown behind Heathrow and Gatwick for London's airport traffic. Fast forward through to the late 1980s, and the rebranding as a London airport in 1990. The next 10 years or so would be up and down, but in December 2018, a three-year redevelopment of the airport was announced and began with a cost of around £160 million. This would include a full modern terminal with new shopping areas boasting a 50% increase in passenger throughput. And part of this would be a new multi-story car park. two to be precise, one of which would be built and completed around 2016 and the other would be built and completed in 2019. Our story today is concerned with car park number two. This was a fivestory steelframed, decked and colummed open deck building built on a concrete base with reinforced concrete floors. The contractor for its construction was awarded in July 2018 and had been estimated to cost around20 million. The contract was issued to Buckingham Contracting Group and the building was penned by Hill Cannon. Interestingly, the building did not have any form of fire suppression system such as sprinklers. It was however designed with a minimum 15minute fire resistance for structural elements and 120 minutes to the concrete walls that enclosed the escape staircases. Like what we saw at Stavinger, it was assumed that the fire services would be on site pretty quickly because the whole thing of it being on an airport and all. Which leads us onto the disaster. The disaster. It is the 10th of October, 2023, and a 9-year-old red Range Rover Sport pulls into the barrier of Luton Airport's car park number two. The time is 2042, and it pulls towards the barrier, and as it pulls towards the barrier, CCTV captures the vehicle. Smoke can be seen emanating from the underside of the engine compartment. The car proceeds up through the car park to level three, where the smoke turns into noticeable flames from the bonnet. The driver abandons the car, leaving it in the roadway within the building. The driver called the emergency services. At 2047 and was the first of several 999 calls to be received regarding the fire. At 2055, the two first firefighting appliances arrived on scene. The fire had completely consumed the Range Rover by now and was towards the northern end of the car park. Quickly, the flames had spread to at least three other cars by the time the first firefighters were in a position to begin activating the building's northwestern dry riser. [music] Fire crews braved the staircase and attempted to douse the flames. However, the speed of the fire assisted with the breeze in the night meant that the fire was spreading quicker than it could be fought. At 2126, all crews were withdrawn from the building as it was way past the 15minute fire resistance and a collapse was now expected. Firefighters changed tact and were using platform mounted hoses to try and fight the flames from outside the building. By 2137, roughly 80% of the third floor was involved in the fire and a major incident was declared. At the same time, the airport was closed to traffic. The fire continued to spread at an alarming rate. By half 10 in the evening, a full stop on all plane traffic in the area was [music] confirmed. At 20 11 at night, the section where the fire had started on the third floor began to collapse into the lower floors, spreading the flames even further. The partial collapse of the building had allowed fire to reach other floors. As such, the fire service implemented a 15 m cordon around the building. The fire would rage on for nearly 24 hours, during which other sections of the car park would collapse, including weakening the top floor, creating an open air building. In total, 15 rescue pumps, free aerial appliances, and more than 100 firefighters would be used on scene during the incident. The structural still had buckled under the intense heat, and an estimated 1,500 vehicles had experienced damage of some sort, [music] with at least 1,300 being so damaged that they are written off. The car park had been damaged to such a point that it was beyond economical repair, requiring it to be torn down and completely rebuilt with damaged cars still being removed for the best part of a year later, causing one hell of an insurance nightmare. An estimated 30,000 passengers were affected with either diverted flights, canceled journeys, revised departures, or revised destination locations. The total cost was in at least tens of millions of pounds to rebuild and pay out all of those damaged vehicles. The rebuild is still underway, of course, with better fire controls. This has created more demand in car park 1 and has pushed more drivers into having to use the longstay car park instead of the terminal car park, which does suck a bit if you have to fly from Luton. But what was the interesting thing was that no one died, which means I can smash this button. But don't get too excited. There were some injuries, most notably in a handful of firefighters for smoke inhalation. But luckily, no one received life-threatening injuries. Investigation. So, in the immediate aftermath, the fire and its ramifications for the country's fifth busiest airport were plastered all over the newspapers and on social media. Initially, criminal intent was thought to be the originating cause of the fire, likely due to there being no other reason to hand. A man in his 30s was arrested for criminal damage, but just under 6 months later, the charges were dropped. As stated by the BBC, a man who was arrested for the fire that destroyed more than,400 vehicles at Luton Airport will face no further action. Police have confirmed the fire was under investigation by both the police and fire services. And it was very clear the cause was the smoking red Range Rover. But finding the exact cause was difficult as the car was completely consumed by the fire. It is known that the car was diesel which are slightly less likely to catch fire, but it was decided during the investigation to have originated in an electrical fault or component failure. An official report named significant incident report London Luton Airport Terminal Car Park 2 would be released in 2024 and it would highlight the underlying issues with the disaster. It would be very similar to other car park fires where the open sides of the building helped push the fire around and with burning cars being fueled up, you literally have a building full of fire fuel. Again, electric cars were blamed in the public, but the report did not agree, saying there is no evidence to demonstrate that the presence of electric vehicles parked in the car park had a detrimental impact on the outcome of the fire. The lack of requirements for sprinklers have been highlighted in a 2018 report by Dame Judith Hackit, where it was found the regulatory system for buildings in England was not fit for purpose. Sprinklers would be included in the National Fire Chief's Council position statement and associated guidance in 2020. But bizarrely, sprinklers aren't a requirement for open car parks in the UK. The report would summarize the place of sprinklers would have had if in the incident if they were actually installed, saying it may have changed and delayed the pattern of the fire spread, increasing the chances of a successful outcome once firefighting operations have begun. But what caused the building to actually collapse? Well, it's a story as old as time. Petrol and diesel burns hot enough to buckle steel enough to cause it to lose its structural rigidity, causing the partial collapse. So, that's my video on the Luton Airport car park collapse. It's going to be a two on my scale, and this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. And also, do you have any other car park collapses for me to cover? I'm always open to suggestions. again let me know down below. [clears throat] This is a plain old video. All videos on the channel are created commons attribution share like [music] licensed pl videos produced by me John in a currently quite nice warm corner of southern London UK. And all I have to say [music] is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music can you do me a favor and play us out please? [music] It is the 11th of November, 2015, and not far from Charville, a rural town in Queensland, Australia, a new bridge is open for public use. There is little fanfare, but it represents a final chapter of a disaster that unfolded roughly a year before. You see, this new bridge is actually a replacement. Just over a year before, the previous iteration of his crossing was looking like this. The opening allows for its nearby short diversion road to be pulled up and replaced with a memorial to reportedly the largest explosion in Australian transport history. The disaster would hit a 2.1 on the RTER scale and would result in the need of a 3 kilometer exclusion zone. Today we're looking at the Angela Creek Bridge disaster. [music] My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my YouTube, Patreon, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos when you can from just £1 per month. And as always, the links will be in the pin comment below. [music] Background. This video came around from a suggestion from one of you lovely watchers. Without suggestions like this, I would have never heard of Angela Creek, let alone its bridge and even less so the explosion that destroyed it. I'm not going to lie, I'm writing this script off the back of my Westgate Bridge video, which has done pretty good in its first few days since publishing, but I fear this video may be slightly shorter due to the slightly less available amount of information about the bridgeg's history and what eventually happened to it. This is the Mitchell Highway. It's an outback state highway that spans the central and southwestern regions of Queensland and the northern and central western areas of New [music] South Wales in Australia. It stretches a whopping 1,095 km or 680 mi varying from multi-lane motorway down to what looks like to the British/Irish eye as a B or RO. It's not a minor road though as it is a vital link aiding in shorter journey times from Darwin to Sydney. Like all roads, almost anywhere on this green and bull thing we call home, various peaks and troughs have to be smoothed out to ensure traversing through an area is as comfortable and as safe as possible. One such smoothing out is traversing the Angela Creek, which is the focus for our story today. And in our case, it was done via a bridge. The bridge is named very beautifully BIS16171. It spans Angela Creek [music] and as seen in its 1972 plans had five spans with the deck consisting of precessed concrete roadway units. Transversely stressed and surfaced with a layer of asphalt. The deck is held up by four reinforced concrete peers and two reinforced concrete abutments which were cast in situ construction. And also the site is around here on my cheap eBay Australia map. The bridge is pretty unremarkable, something you just drive over and not have a second thought of. It did have a neighbor and this was a disused railway bridge. But although serving the highway thanklessly for decades, it would not make it past 2014. Which leads us onto our next section of this video, the disaster. It is the 5th of September, 2014, and at around 8:35 in the evening in Charleville, a Chemworth Prime Mover and three trailers passed by. They're carrying 52.8 tons of ammonium nitrate in 44 bags, each weighing 1.2 tons. The load is dangerous and the truck's total journey was long, but the driver had quite a bit of experience, having traveled the route quite often between South Australia and Gladston can very consistently over the past year. The truck is heading southbound along the Mitchell Highway. As the truck approaches the bridge, the driver saw a fire coming out from the engine bay of his Kenworth. This was not too far from the Creek Bridge. The driver pulled over the truck off to the side of the road. As he steered off road, part of the truck struck the guardrail near the creek road bridge, causing the vehicle to roll over. The fire spread after the tractor hit the ground on its side as the fuel tanks became ruptured. A larger fire ensued, gradually engulfing the truck's contents. At around 9:00 p.m., a car arrived on the scene and a driver went in to assist the truck driver. This was followed by another truck heading northbound whose driver also went to assist. Shortly after, a second truck also traveling on a north stopped. Due to poor phone signal in the area, one of the assisting people went off to a nearby farm to call 0000 to request emergency services. The first of such emergency services arrived on scene around 10 p.m., followed by another just a few minutes later. It had taken roughly 30 minutes between the initial fire and the first of the two fire appliances to arrive. However, the first fire crew noticed something rather concerning about the truck's cargo, and this was the ammonium nitrate. It hadn't been communicated to them on the 0000 service due to none of the people reporting it realizing what the truck was carrying. Ammonium nitrate gets very explosivey when exposed to enough heat. And what's more, it was noticed that some of the truck's contents had spilled out onto the roadway, all the way down to the truck's final resting place. Police car also arrived on the scene around the same time as the second fire truck. At around 11 minutes past 10 p.m., a small explosion, as described like fireworks going off, rang out from the truck. Not needing any more warning, all the first responders backed off from the crash scene. As they scrambled for safety, a second, much more larger and violent explosion erupted out from the truck, completely obliterating the vehicle. The shock wave of the explosion hit the creek bridge and the rail bridge next to it, completely wiping out the former and knocking down the latter. The two fire trucks that were nearby were completely demolished along with the sitting police car. The explosion was estimated to be around 10 to 15 tons equivalent of TNT. Miraculously, as the debris and smoke scattered around, no one had died, which means I'm going to be able to hit this magical button. A police sergeant would later be quoted saying, "Their theory to the lack of death." We believe possibly the location of the truck and where it's exploded and the construction of the roadway may have shielded them slightly from the majority of the blast, but there is a significant amount of debris, shrapnel from the truck and concrete from the destroyed road bridge and highway that has been thrown a significant distance from the initial explosive site. It is truly amazing when sizable debris was found 1 kilometer away from the sight of the crash vehicle that no one was actually killed. Due to the dangers of any remaining ammonium nitrate, police and fire services would set up a 2 km exclusion zone around the site for a few days. This was to aid in the cleanup operation. And the immediate aftermath, the highway was shut down to road users, necessitating a 600 km detour. just for reference there. That's near the entire length of England as a road detour. It would be removed when on the 7th of October 2014, a side track along the creek had been upgraded to support road vehicle. Eight people were injured in the explosion and they were sent off to local medical centers for emergency treatment and again no one died although the truck driver was hospitalized for quite some time. investigation. Due to the explosion completely eradicating the truck, the exact cause of the initial fire couldn't really be investigated beyond a statement from the severely injured driver. The two prevailing theories would be either a split fuel line and the fuel leaking onto the engine's hot exhaust and igniting or an electrical arc igniting some leaking fuel. Clearly, there'd been a very intense fire estimated at over a,000° centigrade. This was found out due to the presence of melted ammonium, nitrate, and aluminium. The second explosion, which was the most devastating, also couldn't [music] have a definitive cause settled upon. Instead, a few likely beginnings were penned in the official report into the blast, saying the cause of the initiation of the second explosion could not be clearly determined. The probable cause scenarios leading to the second explosion following the fire include thermal explosion or cookoff, defluration under pressure, heat conduction and chemical reaction detonation shockwave driven either direct shock detonation transition or deflaguration detonation transition or water hammer/conerted void collapse i.e. hotspot. The bridge's failure was hardly a surprise as they generally aren't designed to withstand a small bomb going [music] off right beside it and quite understandably as well. The investigation did find some underlying issues, not so much with the truck as it was deemed to be well looked [music] after, but with the fact that the dangerous cargo was not correctly communicated to the first responders. This was due to the initial fire burning up the manifest, emergency procedure guide, placards, and emergency information panels aboard the truck, which would have very well warned the first responders of the deadly cargo the truck was carrying. Likely, if they had seen these, an exclusion zone would have been set up straight away at a safe distance. But it does seem like the accident was a lot of bad luck followed by some real good luck on the day. However, like all things, there were some recommendations. This included more secure screens alongside the truck trailers intending to hold the loads during crashes [music] better and to communicate ammonium nitrate transport routes to emergency services and remote communities for pre-planning of emergency responses among other recommendations that were posited. A new 10 million Australian bridge was built after a very costly cleanup and demolition of the original crossing. Which brings us back to the beginning. It like its predecessor stands unassumingly serving the roadway. Let's hope though it doesn't have such an explosive ending. The bypass road next to the old bridge was taken up and reused as a parking point in memorial area. So that's my video on the Angela Creek Bridge disaster. It's going to be a tour on my scale and this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This a pl production. All videos on the channel creative com attribution share light licensed plenty of different videos produced by me John in the currently mild corner of southern London UK and all to say is thank you much for watching Mr. music. Can you play us out, please? [music] >> [music] >> Just so you know, I now have a reverb page. This is where I sell some of the old equipment that I've used for videos in the studio here in sunny South London, as well as other kinds of vintage instruments, vintage music equipment, as well as some electrical bits and pieces I've put together, such as this guitar pedal that I have designed and built myself in my shed in the back garden. Anyway, let's get on with the video. Last year, I was looking at some of my mom's old family photographs, and nestled amongst the old pictures of cars where my mom grew up and random camping holidays was this photo. I asked my mom who took the picture, and she said it was her. This really piqued my interest. What surprised me even more was that she said it was taken in Brighton. Well, it turns out that in the opening weeks of 1980, Brighton gained a very unlikely tourist attraction, which bizarrely made the beaches of Brighton a wash with visitors in the middle of winter. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. Today, we're looking at the Athena B shipwreck. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my YouTube, Patreon, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos, then you can from just £1 per month. And as always, the links will be in the pin comment below. Athena B. Our story, which ended up on the beaches of South England, began on the other side of the world in Hiroshima, Japan with the construction of a new cargo ship. She started out under the name MS Kojima Maru and was pressed into service from March 1968. She was a pretty unexceptional to the grand scheme world of shipping cargo vessel. She had a weight of 3,468 tons, a length of 89 m, a beam of 12.8 m, and a maximum speed of 12 knots. She was a general cargo ship and over the years her name would change a couple of times while still under the Japanese flag taking the names of MS Hungi in 1973 and MS Nina Pa in 1976. Her third name under the Japanese flag would only last a couple of years until 1979 where she would gain her final name Fina B. Not only that, but she had also changed flag and port of register to the Greek port city of Pereus. This life under the Greek flag wouldn't be that long, which leads us onto her final voyage, a fateful journey. It is the 11th of December 1979 and the Athena B is getting ready to depart via Azour for shore and by sea along the south coast of England which is around here on a map. She is filled to the brim with pummus stones. The journey was not an easy problemfree one. Now the following parts about the vessel's issues come from an RNLI website post about the event. The ship had encountered problems with her generator, gyro, compass, and radar whilst crossing the Bay of Bisque. Repairs were carried out at L Rochelle in France, and the ship continued on her course towards Shorum. Upon resuming her journey, she reached just outside Sha by sea on the 20th of January 1980. Entry to the harbor had been closed off due to poor weather, equating to force winds of around 7 and 8, forcing her to wait it out. At the time, there were 25 people aboard the ship. As she tries to hold her position, is found that she's actually floating towards the harbor. The MS Afina's engines had started to fail. The ship was beginning to lose its steerage as well. Her captain sent out for help from the British Coast Guards. The lifeboat, Dorothy and Philip Constants, was dispatched across the harsh weather. The lifeboat successfully reached the ship and the first two rescue attempts saved four lives, including the captain's wife and children. On the second attempt, the lifeboat did receive some damage as it was launched into the air and nearly mounted the ship's deck during the heavy weight and [music] wind. The ship's engines mercifully gave out just enough more power to propel her away from the harbor. Another request for a lifeboat was also sent out by the captain to recover a further 11 crew. During this period, a tug was offered, but the captain refused, hoping that the ship would eventually make it into port under her own power. By the late evening, the Athena B had drifted towards Brighton and was just west of the city's marina. She was low on fuel and almost completely out of control. Seeing the writing on the wall, the Athenia's captain sent out a Mayday call, which funny enough has actually a recording of which still survives. The ship was close to running a ground. A lifeboat pulled up aside in the treacherous weather and the final 10 crew escaped the ran ground vessel, leaving her to the strong winds and tidal waves crashing into the south coast. She had been pushed to ground in between the Palace Pier and Brighton Marina, which when looking at the location on the map was a miracle it didn't crash into either. The poor weather raged on, crashing the ship around. Eventually, she collided with a groiny, breaking her back. Thankfully, no one died, which means I can hit this button. Although many of the ship's crew were transferred to hospital for hypothermia, and also on top of that, a number of Coast Guard workers were injured during the rescue mission. Luck was really on their side, as during the rescue attempts, the lifeboat was at risk of capsizing several times during the heavy winds, which needless to say would have resulted very likely in casualties. In total, two lifeboats, shore helpers, the tug meching, multiple coast guard, police, and ambulance vehicles, as well as shore and community center was all drafted in to help with the rescue and afterare for the ship's crew. As the sun dragged up on the 21st of January, 1980, the city of Brighton was revealed to have a new residence on the beach. aftermath. Being on the beach just east of the Palace Pier, just in front of the aquarium, means that needless to say, many eyes would have fallen upon the large, unexpected aquatic structure that had befallen the good people of Brighton on the morning of the 21st of January. Quickly, the news spread, and as the day wore on, quite the crowd started upon the beachfront. Visitors surrounding the ship on the beach attempted to tear off momentos from the hull, requiring a cordon to be placed around the perimeter, guarded by local police. An estimated 30,000 people over its total time would visit the ship, which sprouted up a mini economy in the area. One such group of gorping tourists was a group of friends in the early 20s from the bright and sunny part of South London known as New Addington. Anyh who, the demand in tourist entertainment even prompted the winter shutdown VKs electric railway to restart running up and down the line varying sightseers between the palace pier and the marina. Stalls were set up along the madiraa drive which is around here on the seafront as traders cashed in on the flocks of people drawn in by the wreck. The ship wasn't getting any more structurally sound being crashed into by the sea every day and would eventually become a quite serious public health hazard. The ship was declared a complete write-off by its insurers. But before it could be taken away for scrap, it needed to be emptied, which would require removing the heavy cargo, personal items, and toxic fuel, all on the beach, surrounded by hundreds of spectators. This was no mean feat. It would take the best part of a month to remove the cargo with a mobile crane being employed on the beachfront until the 21st of February 1980 where the then much lighter MS Athena was refloated and removed for cutting up around Medway. When it departed Brighton, a Salvation Army band attended to send it off with some music. The shipwreck had become a bit of a winter oddity. It had managed to generate some extra income for the city. The cargo ship's excursion even inspired the name of a fish and chip shop nearby in Brighton. There's also the ship's anchor on display on the beachfront, marking the bizarre time Brighton gained an unexpected winter attraction. The brave actions of the lifeguards was commended with Shore Lifeboat Coxane Ken Voice being awarded the RNLI silver medal and other crew members being awarded the RNLIs thanks to the institution of Venom Award. I know this was a slightly shorter than normal video. There wasn't massive amounts of information about it, but sometimes it's fun to cover these oddities of British history, especially the way my mom nonchalantly went. Oh yeah, we saw a run a ground container ship one afternoon. So that's my video on the Athena B shipwreck. It's [music] going to be a two on my scale and this is what I've got of my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the [music] comments below. This is plenty of full production. All videos on the channel are creative common attribution shell like licensed plenty of videos produced by me John in the currently quite mild but nice corner of southern London UK and all I have to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music can you play us out please [music] >> [music] >> So, just before we get started with this week's video, I'm really happy to announce that I have these root cause analysis cards up for sale on my Band Camp, as well as a new cassette tape of some of my new music up for sale. I really hope you check it out. And without any further ado, let's get on to this week's video. Repair works are a vital part of building maintenance. Be it the odd bit of rewiring, plumbing, updating, reflooring or pointing etc. This is much more prevalent in older buildings as like everything in the world, age takes its toll and to stay fresh for the future, you need to keep on maintaining your usefulness in order to save off the bulldozers. The importance of knowing the area you're going to work on is also very important because a small job can turn into an absolute nightmare when you open up an unexpected rat's nest or some bodgege previous fix. This kind of is the case back in 2023 when a very old building was undergoing some repair works where the workers assumed one thing but ended up with this as the aftermath. Today we're looking at the 2023 New York City parking garage collapse. My name is John and welcome to Plain Any Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my YouTube, Patreon, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos, then you can from just one pound per month. And as always, the links are in the pin comment below. Also, whilst you're there, check out some of my other bits like the music I make and random bits and pieces I sell on Reverb. Again, the links will be down below. >> [music] >> background. So, this car park video is different to the ones more recently on my channel of unexpected self deconstruction in that the structure was not fairly new. Instead, it was the best part of a century old when it decided it didn't like being a car park anymore. Thus, our story begins in the year 23. Not 2023, but 1923. This is an street, Manhattan, New York. And in 1923, a building standing on this plot of land around number 57 is just a year away from being condemned. In early 1925, a demolition permit and alteration certificate was issued. This would pave the way for the building in our video. A certification of occupancy would be issued in January 1926 stating a garage for more than five autos. The [music] building used cinder concrete slabs reinforced with welded wire fabric. These were supported on concrete encased steel beams and girders which were also supported on internal concrete encased steel columns and [music] perimeter unreinforced loadbearing walls and peers. Some of the brick perimeter walls were constructed with the garage in 1925. However, some others were reused from older buildings that had been on the site's pre-new build. And just [music] so you know, the foundations for the building were spread footings. Over the years, the building would receive various modifications to increase its car loading capacity. In 1957, the roof was modified to add more parking with a stipulation for passenger type vehicles only. Being a parking garage in a massively congested city like New York, it would not be much of a surprise that it saw a lot of use over the years. Hundreds of tons of vehicles each day would show on the building structure with noticeable cracks, reinforcement rusting, loose brick work, and deteriorating concrete being a not uncommon sight for motorists as their family [music] cars were parked. In 2003 and six years later, the City Department of Buildings issued to the car park's owner violations regarding poor maintenance and illegal modifications. It was found the building had experienced structural damage during these notices. It was not new, however, as over its operating life, it had racked up multiple concerns with staircases being cracked, spooling concrete, and exposed steel beams. But even though falling apart, a car park had quite a few regular customers. One such was New York City's sheriff's office, who regularly parks some vehicles on site. In 2010, repair works was submitted to the Department of Buildings, and the work to add new supporting [music] beams was undertaken. 11 years later, a new rule came into effect in New York City. This would require parking structures to have regular Department of Building inspections. The building's owners used the consultants on retainer Experian design group to undertake [music] a survey of the car park in May 2022 in preparation for the city rules for submitting a report by the 31st of December 2023. The 3D survey used by EDG found some issues which [music] would require fixing. Most notably cracking on pier E3 directly beneath a thirdf flooror gerder. The company came back 4 weeks later for a second 3D scan. During this, they identified Pier E3 again as needing work and identified it as a masonry column encasement [music] instead of what it actually was, which was a solid brick loadbearing pier. The difference would change the way any repair work would be undertaken. As it was just an enc casement, the load of the floor above it would have been taken by a steel column which the bricks were encasing. On top of that, EDG did not identify the cracking brick works condition as unsafe. Instead, the pier was a solid brick arrangement. I know I'm repeating myself here a bit, but the difference is that if you remove the bricks from the solid brick pier, then you are removing the thing holding the weight above you. On the 21st of March and 22nd of March 2023, EDG workers tasked with doing another survey to assist in drawing up repair plans discovered further damage to Pier E3, and that was that some cracked bricks had been removed prior to their visit. In April, the garage repair drawings were issued. There it was set out that the brick work would have to be removed and rebuilt. No instructions for shoring up the floor and roof materials being held up by the pier had been set out. Which leads us onto the disaster and repair works are set to deal with the cracking brick work at Pier E3. The disaster. It is the 18th of April 2023 and car park employees begin removing damaged brick and mortar from the upper section of pier E3 on level two. As each brick that was being chiseled out and removed, it began loading up more stress on the pier's remaining brick work. This work did not have the required permit from the city, but I suppose the managers of the car park didn't think it'd be too much of a problem due to still thinking it was an enc casement rather than the actual thing holding the floor up. The removal of the damaged brick showed no steel support behind. Photographs were taken and sent to EDG. This was at around 10 3 in the afternoon. EDG project manager Vivec Sha instructed the workers to replace the bricks which is all good and all although no warning of urgency or danger of the building was communicated to the workers. Also, the lack of information about the danger meant no attempt at shoring was made on site. The workers did not place any new bricks on the pier, but they were very quickly running out of time. Meanwhile, at 4 minutes 4:00 p.m., a car park member of staff in a vehicle on the roof backed into a drive aisle and drove past pier E3 and into the vehicle lift. At around the same time, the garage partially collapsed on the northeastern and southeastern quadrants of the building. The second floor crashed into the first, bringing down the structure above it. Cars plunged into the wreckage as the building let out a deafening crash, interrupting the hustle and bustle of the New York landscape. Soon enough, multiple 911 calls came flooding in and the first responders arrived on scene. The adjoining buildings were evacuated and in total, the collapse would end up causing quite a widespread error of effect. Subway services nearby had to be operated at lower speeds. Nearby Pace University classes were cancelled and multiple areas had to be shut off due to structural fears for the remaining parts of the building, including its streetside facade. The building operated on a valley parking service, which limited the numbers of people inside at the time of the collapse. However, seven workers were injured, requiring minor medical treatment. The collapse would take one victim, though, garage manager, 59-year-old Willis Moore. His body would be pulled from the wreckage the day after the collapse. It was estimated that 40 cars were in the building at the time of the disaster, which would require removal by crane and an estimated insurance cost for the vehicles alone, coming to $1.5 million. Demolition of the structure would begin on the 20th of April, but not before investigators would descend upon the site for evidence gathering. This took place using LAR scans and 360° photography to build up a state of the car park post collapse. Interestingly, the investigating would be jobbed out to a third party company instead of by the city itself. The company was L Consulting Structural Engineers, which leads us onto our next section of the video, the investigation. So fairly soon after the April 2023 collapse, LER was held on retainer. They began by looking over the photographs taken during initial first responders work and started digging into the building's history. As demolition began, drones and cameras were employed to gather evidence of the structure as parts were removed. Important sections were marked as evidence for fire inspection and laboratory testing later on. This in conjunction with witness testimony and reviewing the surveys undertaken by EDC gave investigators a pretty good sense of the cause of the collapse. Clearly the start of the disaster was at Pier E3 as that was the epicenter of the self-granded part of the building. This was the exact location that the masonry was being ripped out for replacement works. It was discovered that Pier E3 was actually a repurposed chimney from a previous party wall and it was not well built for the task it was meant to do. As stated by L, the pier was not well integrated to the party wall, leaving it poorly braced against buckling, unable to effectively distribute concentrated loads from the floor girders into the surrounding wall and more highly stressed than a pier that is well integrated to the surrounding wall. The building was very troubled throughout its life with a total of reported 64 building code violations between 1976 and 2023 alone. It was deteriorating at such a rate that multiple areas were at a fraction of the strength that they were meant to be, such as rusted away steel work and severely cracked brick peers. But what was the collapse sequence? Well, the repair works on column E3 severely weakened the support for the third floor girder. At around the same time, it was at its weakest, i.e. with many bricks removed, the vehicle was driven on the roof above Pier 3. Around the same time, this was just about the right amount of extra weight to set off the collapse. It crushed the remaining bricks and mortar in pier E3. This made the third floor girder to drop a few inches, in turn, creating a void on the pier at the third floor. The void left only supports on the party wall to hold up the upper story of pier E3. Soon enough, this connection at the party wall failed, thus bringing down the roof girder into the third floor and down and down and so on. Pier E3 was likely not even built to codes of its day next to the party wall and not built into it, which when added to the neglect that the building went through meant that it was a ticking time bomb as noted by LER in their report. During its 98-year lifespan, Pier E3 suffered long-term progressive deterioration, likely caused by a combination of natural aging and long-term exposure to moisture and potentially aggravated by the elevated stresses due to the above described design and construction deficiencies. And this deterioration resulted in severe cracking in the pier. The straw that broke the camel's back was though the improper survey that incorrectly identified the pier as having steel inside. Again for the LER report, EDG failed to require shoring and probing to verify the apparent assumption that Pier E3 consisted of nonstructural brick encasement of a structural steel column. The collapse was a real eye opener for the state of many buildings in New York City. In the aftermath, 61 parking garages would be deemed to be immediately hazardous. Understandably, the collapse would generate multiple lawsuits against the building's owners, which are still underway, although I reckon they will be successful as the LER report was released only in April 2025, which was rather damning as we've seen during this video. So, that's my video on the An Street car park collapse. [music] It's going to be three on my scale, and this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a pl production. All videos on the channel creative comation shell like licensed pl videos produced by me John in the currently quite warm corner of southern London UK. And all I have to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music. Can you play out please? [music] >> [music] [music] >> This is the Southern Council offices on Tudi Street, central London. It's like all of the other 32 plus city of London local authority districts are responsible for council housing within their respective boundaries. The views from the council offices are pretty privileged being near the South Bank, Tower Bridge, Hayes Galleria and City Hall to name a few of the things you can see. However, 16 years ago almost to the day of recording this script on the 3rd of July 2009, the view from the offices was much more concerning. Smoke was emitting from one of the council housing blocks just a few miles away. Today we're looking at the lessons that should have been learned in order to prevent the later Granfell tragedy which would largely eclipse the disaster in Savoc. Of course, today we're talking about the Lacanol House disaster. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my YouTube, Patreon, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos, then you can from just £1 per month. And as always, the links will be in the pinned comment below. [music] Background. So London post 1945 was pretty beaten up from the big old, you know, near midcentury mutual destruction and mass trying to not alive everyone event. Post war, many parts of the inner London area required rebuilding. Many had been left homeless, and in an effort to replenish housing stock and thus reduce the displaced, it was thought that high-rise blocks would be the magic bullet to offer some relief to the city's housing concerns. During this same period, other postwar new towns were built for people to leave the capital together, but that isn't a story for today. Instead, we're going to look at an inner London council estate penned during the late 1950s. So, this is Campwell South London around here on a map and it is the location of Scar Gardens estate. The site pre- estate was the home to a group of historic buildings which in the 1950s was being used as council offices. Now, with the council having control of the site, it made it much easier to build a council estate. This was to be two 16story buildings with 7in reinforced concrete crosswalls at intervals of 11 ft 6 in with 4.5 in thick floor and roof slabs. Both towers are roughly the same size at 41 ft wide and 187 ft long. The two towers were lacol Mary Kerry. You see every plainly difficult video has some kind of radiation link. In addition to the two towers, there are four six-story blocks of masons and one six-story block of one-bedroom flats. The dwellings in Lacenol and Mary Kerry are often considered mason as they cover two floors, but technically they don't have their own front door. Instead, access is via internal corridors. Because of this, in different reports, they have also been referred to as flats. So, do forgive me as I'll probably be using both terms interchangeably throughout the video. Regardless, being split level mason, they're constructed as pairs, which are up and over one another. For example, one would have its living room and kitchen over the other's bedroom. I hope this diagram I've made makes some kind of sense to the layout of the paired up flats. To reach between each mason's internal floors, a hole is cut in the concrete floor slab. This was for a timber staircase. To help with internal fire suppression, they protected using mineral fiberboard. However, the staircase does protrude slightly over into the communal corridors. The design afforded four points of escape in the event of a fire. This was via the main apartment entrance out onto two balconies, one at each side of the block. This was from the kitchen living room area and via a small dwarf door out from one of the bedrooms out into the internal passageway. This was rather complex and residents weren't actually informed of the uses of these fire escapes. Access to each oddnumber floor, i.e. the entrance floor to each mason was via a communal staircase and lift. The building was completed in 1960 under the ownership of the former Metropolitan Burough of Campwell and was handed over in 1964 and 1965 to the newly formed Suffach Council. So in the 1970s, the building would receive its first of many refurbishments. This included a new facade and security doors because, well, these types of blocks became very quickly a hot bed of crime where hiding places, covered walkways, and open communal areas just invited the wrong type of people. Part of the refurbishment required the doors to have ventilation. This was done by a wire vents in the center of the door. It helped with ventilation, but would not be great for fire compartmentalization. The facade was replaced with a timber frame with a speestos panel arrangement because of course it would have a speestos. Later on in the 1980s, a full ceiling was installed in the communal hallways to enable services installation. This was due to the tower going from hot air heating to boiler house central heating. This was a plyboard with a melamine covering. It was fire resistant but only to a point and severely reduced the head height in the communal areas. During the 1980s refurbishment, some fire compartmentalization was actually removed and metal framed windows, which were more efficient, but still not great, were added. Over the years, the communal areas would be repainted with oilbased coverings, which would eventually be covered with a fireresistant coating. Originally scheduled for the demolition in the late 1990s, the towers were once again given a new lease of life and a spruce up instead of being demolished. The towers in 2006 would receive a light refurbishment. This included changing the building's cladding to an aluminium and composite materials arrangement. Although it was sub council's responsibility to make sure the building was up to the relevant fire codes, during the 2006 refurbishment, it was deemed to not need a full review. But this would prove to be fatal. The disaster. It is the afternoon of the 3rd of July, 2009, and everything seems normal in Lacoral House. At around 4:15 in the afternoon, a fire broke out in one of the bedrooms of flat 65. It would later be deemed it was a faulty TV set. Quickly, the combustible materials like bedding and furniture had caught a light. Residents in the mason attempted to fight the fire, but quickly was too much. A phone call to 999 was made at 21 minutes 4. Around the same time, another call was made from flat 79 above as smoke began to enter their apartment. Fire from the initial mason had spread to the upper floor above via the window facade, assisted by a draft between the building and the cladding. Within 5 minutes, a significant portion of the building's exterior was ablaze. Just minutes after the first 999 call came in through the first firefighters were on scene. There was a fire station just down the road at Peekham Road. The occupant of flat 79 seeing the smoke entering asked the 999 operator whether they should stay or leave, but they were advised to stay put. By 4:23 p.m. 1999 calls from Lacenor House had been received. By 4:42 p.m., another call had come in from flat 81 across from flat 79 on the 11th floor. At around the same time, flat 82 called in with their mason filled with smoke as well. A fire had spread across floor 11. At 4:55 p.m., the operator at the 999 call center noted the residents in flat 79 had gone silent. They had been on the phone to the 999 operator for nearly half an hour. Flat 53 on the seventh floor and flat 37 on the fifth floor was seen from the outside emitting smoke from the building's facade. Meanwhile, firefighters had been severely hindered in their efforts on the day of the fire. Emergency access lift was out of action due to refurbishment works. This forced the first responders to climb the emergency stairs. This was hindered even further by missing floor identification plates, requiring counting the floors as the firefighters went up. This severely reduced the amount of oxygen available for the firefighters to use on the burning floors. The building had in a shockingly quick time filled up with dark thick smoke. The fire was blazing on multiple floors, blowing smoke into the sky. During the fire, some of the cladding had melted, dripping flaming molten material down onto the mason below, getting stuck in the anti-pigeon spikes. At 5:42 p.m., London Ambulance Service medics were sent up in a breathing apparatus and along with firefighters discovered the first victims around a half an hour later. Injured were evacuated to nearby hospitals of Guys, Lewis, and Kings for medical care. By the time the disaster was over after several hours of firefighting and at least 18 appliances had been in attendance, six had lost their lives, including a baby just under a month old. The victims had all passed away within 90 minutes of the initial fire and were all residents of the 11th floor. The disaster had shocked the wider community and London as a whole. The smoke could be seen for miles. Even my wife saw them from her at the time place of work. The disaster was reported in national news. But of course, the main question on everyone's minds was how did the fire spread so quickly? I mean, a fatal fire in one contained apartment is tragic enough, but how had it gone to multiple floors? Clearly, there was an issue. And oh boy, it was a big one that brought into question the hundreds of similar vintage and owned flat blocks that littered the London skyline. The investigation. So, in the aftermath, the fire was initially treated as suspicious by the Met Police. However, this was only due to the cause not being immediately known in the first few days after the fire, as stated in a BBC report. Chief Superintendent Wayne Chance said the fire was being treated as suspicious because the cause was not yet known. But by the end of the month, a report released on the 30th of July named report to the fire to the secretary of state by the fire chief and rescue adviser on the emerging issues arising from the fatal fire at Lacenol House Camberwell on the 3rd of July 2009 would have already zeroed in on the original fire source. It has been established that the fire started in a bedroom of number 65 on the 9inth floor and was caused by an electrical fault in a portable television. But the initiating cause of the fire is only just a small piece. True, if the fire hadn't set a light, there wouldn't have been any fire in the building at all that day. But the building shouldn't have just burnt up so quickly, spreading from dwelling to dwelling. Inspections of the building postfire showed intense heat had traveled along both laterally and vertically. Something that shouldn't have happened due to the theory of compartmentalization. But clearly, it didn't work on that day. Investigators discovered the poor compartmentalization around the internal apartment staircases as well as the flammable when hot enough fall ceiling in the communal hallways. It was also found that the paint on the walls in the communal hallways had melted and caught on fire even though it was rated for 60 minutes. However, it was found to have caught a light due to inconsistent application of its coating. It was also found that the compartmentalization of departments was broken with improper sealing around the cutings made for services installation such as the hot water feed for the heating systems. The front doors although proved to be fireresistant as shown in this picture were not smoke sealed which allowed toxic and suffocating smoke to enter different dwellings via the communal corridors. The vents in the communal doors also helped to push the fire and smoke along the corridors helping spread the fire quicker than intended. The spread of the fire externally from the quick ignition of the cladding was also quite clearly obvious just by looking at the aftermath photographs. Investigators also found that Suffach Council was responsible for fire safety checks at its flats from 2006. However, they had made no such checks at Lacano even after it had its cladding changed. Now on the cladding, it was found to have allowed the fire to spread so quickly, but a death toll could have been reduced if they weren't advised to stay put by the 999 call operators. This was the controversial stop and wait policy which the London fire grade had in effect at the time, which was meant to work if the flats were properly compartmentalized, which would have allowed enough time for rescue teams to reach them. But we all know this wasn't sufficient at Lacol House. Residents who had gone against this advice and had escaped whilst they still had a chance had survived. But on top of the advice, the tower block was confusing and had a complex layout which led to confusion of both residents ability to escape and for firefighting efforts to reach the stranded residents. A coroner's inquest was set up to investigate the cause of the six deaths. It ran for 10 weeks and was headed by Judge Francis Kirkham. The inquest would highlight all the previously mentioned issues with the building which boiled down to just improper maintenance and management of the tower block. But the scary thing is is to just look at the references section for this video and a word that comes up quite a lot as you'll see that is Grenfell. You see, a lot of the resources I use for this video had actually been dug up in a June 2017 Grenfell fire inquiry, which you guessed it was down to very similar issues of combustible cladding and local authority ineffectiveness. But what was different from Grenfell is that Laconal House is still in use today in 2025. It was quickly refurbished and reused for housing just a year after the fire. Southern Council would plead guilty at the earliest opportunity in a 2017 hearing to four charges concerning breaches to health and safety regulations dating between 2006 and 2009. It was fined £400,000 reduced to £270,000 due to the guilty plea plus £300,000 in costs. Reportedly, the council expressed sincere regret for the failures that were present in the building. Interestingly, many more properties under management of the council also fell short on inspections apart from some select staff buildings. The sad thing is that the lessons from Lacol were so glaring that they were not learned from which meant that this disaster being the worst in London history at the time would quickly be overtaken by Grenfell which should have very easily have been prevented. So that's my video on the lacel houseire. is going to be free on my scale and this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. [music] This is a plenty of production. All videos on the channel are creative commons attribution share like licensed pl videos produced by me John and the currently very hot corner of southern London UK. And all I have to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music can you play us out please? [music] Heat. [music] Heat. [music] >> [music] >> It is around 6:30 on the morning of the 19th of July, 2018, and mostly the streets of New York are calm and quiet. But the regular morning hustle and bustle around the 5th Avenue of Manhattan is soon to be interrupted. At 6:37 in the morning, a sudden release of energy explodes, shooting out into the air, a raging plume of scolding hot steam infused with debris, mud, and pieces of roadway. New York City has experienced yet another steam explosion. Today, we're looking at the 2018 incident. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my YouTube, Patreon, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos and want to financially [music] support the channel, then you can from just one pound per month. And as always, the links will be in the pin comment below, as well as my reverb for used studio gear, as well as my Band Camp for other merch, such as my disaster bingo card. background. Our story begins way back to the beginnings of steam use in New York City. However, I do cover it in more detail in my other New York Steam explosion, which the video is linked to around here. New York has had a Steam system since the 1880s. And the system after expanding and contracting over the years in the 2010s network's operator Con Edison has close to 2,000 accounts and is in charge of 105 mi of steam main pipe work. The company has five generating stations littered across the city. These provide the important source for the network steam running at a pressure of up to 190 psig and temperatures up to 413 Fahrenheit or 211 Celsius. But for today, we're just looking at this bit of the Con Edison network. This is around Fifth Avenue between the 20th and 21st Streets. The pipework here mostly dates back to 1932. However, some parts had been replaced most notably in 1991 and 2005 around a junction of the 21st Street. The pipe work was a 20in mainline at the junction of the 21st Street and Fifth Avenue. It was at a depth of 9 ft. Diving down to 14 ft at the 20th Street and 22nd Street junctions. This downhill dive is very important to the system, which means I need to talk about traps and not that type of trap. So, these bits of infrastructure help catch condensation that builds up within the pipes. This can be caused by low ambient temperatures, external pipe contact with water, and lack of steam in the system. The downhill gradient of the pipe work means that once turned into water, it can flow via the use of gravity down to a trap where it is taken out of the system. You see, builtup water in the steam system is bad. It can invite rust, reduce system efficiency, and can cause things called water hammers, where steam gets trapped inside water, which can release shock waves in the pipe work when they collapse. But hint hint, we'll look into this a little bit later on in the video. Now to prevent condensate from forming in the first place, the pipe work is covered with insulation. And being old, what do you think they used? Of course, it was the early mid 20th century goto carogen asbestos. The pipes were covered with it, after which it was then intombed in concrete with a 2-in air gap insulated pipe and housing. Condensation still happens, though, hence the traps installed in the network. If water infiltrates to the outside of the pipe, it is drained off to the sewer using drainage sections. However, this is very important that it is maintained. Unfortunately, the 86 odd years old life subterranean had taken its toll on some of the sections, not allowing water to drain off and rusting through, allowing water to sit between the pipe and the insulation. So, placed around the network are things called anchors. These are supports that are welded to the steam main that restrict thermal expansion of the steam main pipe. This is because the pipes expand and contract with the heat of the steam. You have to limit this otherwise well it wouldn't be good. But that is enough background for today's video. Let's move on to the next section. The disaster. It is the 19th of July, 2018, and sensors at the 22nd Street and Fifth Avenue upper trap inlet has dropped from 360° F to 351°. This was between 4:30 in the morning and 5 in the morning. However, this modest temperature wasn't picked up by operators, [music] but it was a hint of something that was very bad to come. This was that the steam was cooling. [music] Thus, some of it was condensing within the main. At approximately 6:37, residents and workers discovered large amounts of water flooding in the basement of 135 Fth [music] Avenue and 137 Fth Avenue. This was very strange. However, at the same time, just outside, the roadway had erupted out into [music] a pillar of boiling hot steam. Debris crashed out of the surrounding area. As the steam rose [music] to above the buildings that lined Fifth Avenue, pressure for the steam main dropped at 6:40 [music] a.m., Con Edison first responders were sent to the rupture site at 6:42 [music] a.m., arriving at 6:50. Needless to say, the massive plume also garnered multiple 911 calls as the surrounding area was battered with mud, concrete, asphalt, and iron [music] shrapnel shards. Within 30 minutes of the release, Con Edison informed the city of the unfolding disaster. Police set up a cordon around the blast area, stopping foot and vehicular traffic from going anywhere near the opening. The steam continued to blast out [music] of the crater it had created until Connors and mechanics were able to partially isolate the main by 7:34. This reduced the release, but some steam was still being expelled. Steam would continue to be released for another 2 hours until Con Edison staff isolated a further seven valves. Five people were treated for minor injuries, [music] which means luckily that no one died. But first, responders [music] would have to deal with one big old headache. That was due to the pipe's age, meaning it was insulated with the [music] asbestos, which had been blasted all around the rupture location and lifted up into the air on top of that steam plume. A hot zone around Rupture Crater was set up. This was a pretty large area from the 19th Street [music] to just past 21st Street. Being in this area meant that you had to be evacuated. This effectively forced everyone from 49 buildings due to [music] the potential asbestos contamination or exposure prevalent. This displaced as many as 500 people from being in their homes [music] from between a few days to several weeks as their buildings were cleared for any contamination. [music] Samples were taken of the air and debris and one sample was found to be [music] 1.5% asbestos. This was enough to set off the disaster zone as an asbestos cleanup site. This required proper PPE for anyone approaching the epicenter of the rupture. During the aftermath, thousands of samples were taken. Some showed elevated levels and others showed [music] lower levels. Assad for multiple buildings around the Fifth Avenue between the 19th and 21st Street had to be scrubbed due to the risk of asbestos contamination. The cost of the cleanup would be in excess of $7 million, but this was not a full cost. The disaster affected local gas, water, and electricity supplies. By mid August, relative normal had finally fallen on the disaster site. But as the cleanup was undertaken, the investigators [music] descended. The investigation. The ruptured part of the main was excavated and was taken for meteorological analysis. It was found to have ruptured along its seam on the underside of the pipe. Basically here. Inspection of the pipe showed significant thinning of the walls due to corrosion which understandably had been weakened to such a point that it couldn't handle the pressure. But they don't just randomly fail. Instead, investigators were thinking more along the lines of a pressure spike to have caused the failure, which brings us into the theory of a water hammer. So, the disaster would evoke a lot of similarities to the 2007 steam disaster, [music] which took the life of one passer by. But although being a steam pipe explosion caused by a water hammer, there were a few key differences. That is of the rain or lack of in the July 19th disaster, which is what was the cause of the water hammer back in 2007 where heavy rainfall had seeped into the housing causing the steam inside the main to condensate and create the water hammer. So what happened in 2018? If the pipe work housing hadn't flooded due to rainfall, how did the steam condense enough to create steam voids? Well, the finger of blame would be pointed [music] at the housing's drainage system. As I mentioned before, moisture can build up within the steam main housing. Inspections on the local pumps responsible for removing excess water found that one of the two had failed. Couple of days before the disaster, they had been inspected and were both working as they should have been. This leads to the theory that the failed pump had allowed the water to accumulate. On top of this, it was found that a nearby abandoned manhole had also created a blockage for water to drain off. When it was abandoned, Con Edison did not modify it to allow the water to drain off. As noted in [music] a New York State Department of Public Service technical report, Con Edison did not install a means of allowing drainage to flow through the housing into the manhole vaults at 20th Street and Fifth Avenue where the water could be removed. All of this created a situation where moisture could build up around the steam main in a volume that it could reduce the temperature within the main, thus opening up the risk of a water hammer. But this was not just any ordinary water hammer. Investigators theorized that it was two hammers at one time, one at each end of the pipe, formed by a sub called condensation. These created steam voids that collapsed around the same time. This pushed the two slugs of water into one another, causing a localized severe over pressure event. But why, you ask? Well, investigators found no damage to the nearby expansion joint, which would have happened in the event of a single water hammer. It was a freak event caused by a whole lot of neglect in a very aging, decrepit steam network. The disaster would result in multiple recommendations to Conson. Kind of surprising due to mans experience they apparently [music] had in running the system. But hey, life is just one great lesson, I suppose. So, that's my video on the 2018 Steam Explosion. is going to be a two on my disaster scale. This I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is plentiful production. All videos on the channel are creative common attribly quite warm corner of southern London UK. And all that's left to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music. Can you play us out please? >> [music] [music] >> It is lunchtime on the 25th of September, 1998 at the Lesso Longford site. [music] It is the primary provider of natural gas to the state of Victoria, Australia. For the most part, at least from the outside, everything seems normal. But it's not. It deals with highly flammable materials such as natural gas and oil and represents a vital cog in local infrastructure and its economy. The morning has proved to be a little bit difficult. There had been difficulties in maintaining the systems temperature. This issue would become irrelevant when at 12:26 in the afternoon, flammable vapors were released. These would soon ignite, causing a conflaggeration resulting in [music] this. Today we are looking at the so long disaster. My name [music] is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my YouTube, Patreon, and Kofi members. [music] If you'd like to support the channel financially, then you can from just £1 per month. And also check the pinned comment for all my links below for merch and other bits and pieces that I have up for sale. Longford. This is Longford in southeastern Victoria, Australia, which is around here on a map. It is home to a rather important piece of infrastructure that is free gas and one crude oil processing plant. It has operated here since 1969 and is under the management of ESO, a subsidiary of the US company Exxon. It processes natural gas here from Wales in the nearby base straight. The crude oil it processes also comes from the base straight as well from the plant. crude oil and raw LPG is sent to Long Island point for further processing to commercial LPG and stabilized oil for refinement. The natural gas once processed at Longford, however, is then dispensed to the Victorian natural gas network. The natural gas works are done by free gas plants named rather creatively GP1 2 and 3. Now, the process roughly goes as follows. Gas comes in from the offshore fields via pipelines. It is cooled and loses its pressure during its journey along the lines to the onshore. The materials pumped from the fields contain methane, ethane, propane, and butane as well as water. During this time, water and the hydrocarbons become condensed and settles in the low parts of the pipe work. These are known as slugs and can prove to be a little bit troublesome as they can weigh several tons. When they reach the plant, the energy they carry is dissipated via things called slug catchers. These separate off liquid from the gases for further processing. This is done at the free gas plants. It passes through an inlet separator in each plant which removes any free water and any other condensate. The gas then passes through molecular saves in each plant to remove water vapor and hydrogen sulfate. Now, for the rest of this video, I will be focusing on just one of the gas plants, which is the first one built in 1969, named number one. Anyways, the gas inlet is chilled by two heat exchangers to prepare it for the absorption process, which is better performed at colder temperatures. Gas plant one has two absorbers, which operated in parallel. The gas was fed into the lower part of the absorbers at a temperature of -25° C. Each tower had internal trays all the way up it. This allows gas to rise and for oil to be fed at the top to drip down via the help of gravity from each tray downwards. As the oil dropped from tray to tray, it absorbed a lot of the heavier components shed from the gas. For example, the ethane, propane, and butane that it contained. The lean oil was thus made rich as it was saturated with the hydrocarbons. condensate carried in the cooled gas dropped into a lower tray in the absorber and this was taken off for further processing. In order to help remove it, it was warmed up using a heat exchanger and goes via its own flash tank. The gas taken out of the top of the absorber is then taken off for sale as natural gas for consumers. Operators for gas processing plant one were informed of the system status via equipment in the control room. Due to its age, dating back to 1969, the instrumentation was a mixture of pneumatic equipment installed at the plant vintage and a much newer computerized system. Now, the site ran 24 hours a day and was staffed as such with two 12-hour shifts formed by five shift teams. Right. So, now we've got some kind of idea of how the plant worked and a rough overview of its operations. Let's move on to the main course of our video, the disaster. The disaster. It is the morning of the 25th of September, 1998, and gas plant 1 was dealing with a large buildup of condensate in absorber B because Enzate could only go to two places. the condensate flash tank or overflow into the rich oil line to its own flash tank. The latter of which being less than ideal. Eventually, the condensate level rose to such a point where it was unmeasurable by the plant instrumentation. This was a sure sign that it had risen into the rich oil section of the absorber. The decrease in temperature and rise in condensate level caused the valve to close, regulating the flow of two vital pumps, which played a part in circulating the lean warm oil to the absorber. This caused them to shut down, thus cutting off the flow of warm oil to the absorber, but gas was still being inserted into the system, which was still bringing in more condensate. The increase in cool condensate and lack of warm oil caused the system temperature to drop. The shift operators tried to restart the pumps, but to no avail. However, they could have been overridden if placed into test mode, but no one had been taught this. Parts of the system temperature dropped to -48° C with the absorber reducing to -25°. Heat exchanger GP905 was starting to show visible signs of icing on the outside along its pipe work. This was around 8:38 in the morning. All the time the gas was still being added to the system, a decision to shut gas plant one down was made. Arrangements had to be made to divert the gas from plant one to plant two. The transfer was completed at roughly 11:30 in the morning. The decision to start up the gas plant was made at around 12:00 p.m. Heat exchanger reb boiler for the lean gas GP905 was absorbed to have formed quite a large amount of ice over its outer shell and uninsulated sections. Operators decided to reduce the flow of lean oil throughout in order to not cause a rapid change in temperature as this could cause a fail and rupture in the heat exchanger. An operator was sent down to operate a valve to reduce the flow. However, some confusion in communication resulted in the wrong piece of equipment being operated. Thus, the flow to GP905 was still full. When the operations restarted and the pumps wirled back into use, an estimated flow temperature of 230° C was sent [music] to the heat exchanger. At roughly 12:26 p.m., the brittle steel of the exch's outer shell failed due to the quick change in temperature. The rupture released over 10 tons of hydrocarbon vapor into the atmosphere. These were highly flammable. The cloud traveled for roughly 170 m for around 60 to 90 seconds until it found some fired heaters and then went and caught itself a light. The deflaggeration burnt back to the leak source and a jet of fire shot out underneath the pipe rack junction causing nine more leaks. The plant supervisor and maintenance supervisor were killed during this initial part of the fire. The flames would continue to burn for 2 and 1/2 days, creating more and more leaks and more more fires. This was because of how long it took to completely isolate gas plant one from all the flammable material. Gas services would be halted for consumers for 2 weeks, causing significant issues for local industries and residential properties, which brought an economic loss estimated at around 1.3 billion Australian dollars. The site processed roughly 37.7,000 barrels per day of LPG and over 188,000 barrels of crude oil per day. Thus, this caused a very large financial shock to local industry when it was shut down. So, needless to say, the disaster would result in an investigation and being in Australia, it would be dug into via a royal commission. In our case, it was headed by former high court judge Daryl Dawson and was launched in October 1998. The investigation. So almost straight away after the fire, investigators from Esso descended upon their severely damaged site and they began pouring over the remains and interviewing their staff. Initially, ESO went down the usual big corporation route, trying to push the blame onto the site's operators. As noted in Andrew Hopkins paper, Lessons from Esso's gas plant explosion at Longford. The company argued that operators and their supervisors on duty at the time should have known that the attempt to reintroduce warm liquid could result in brittle fracture. But this wasn't exactly true. The inquiry took a different view. Again, quoting Hopkins here. The commission took the view that the fact that none of those on duty at the time understood just how dangerous the situation was, which indicated a systematic training failure. I'm more inclined to agree with the inquiry here as Esso was known at the time to prioritize downtime incidents in his training. This can lead to focusing on getting things up and running quickly, but always not in the most safest way. The inquiry would settle on four main issues. The site was needlessly complex, meaning isolations were difficult to undertake. Poor training of personnel and operating procedures led the operators to become confused and operate the incorrect equipment. Poor communication between shifts, especially on the night and day shift handover on the disaster day. And finally, the way the control systems worked. In fact, they gave excess alarms, desensitizing staff to serious issues. So, a forensic investigation would also be undertaken on the failed part of the REB boiler. And it was found that the failure had occurred at a weld seam. As the warmer oil was pumped in, the outer section still remained cold. And it was this joint where the failure had occurred. The difference in temperature caused a stress fracture in the casing of the REB boiler. The REB boiler was normally operated at a temperature range of between 60 and 230° C, which was a sudden shock from the -48° it had been subjected to during the shutdown. In the aftermath, ESO received a fine of $2 million Australian dollars in July 2001, followed by a class action suit from consumers for loss of earnings due to the gas outage. This would be settled out of court and finally on top of all that, the company had to pay 32 million Australian dollars in property damage in addition to the some 400 to$500 million in damages to their own plant. The disaster was unfortunately all too common. operators doing the wrong thing in a rush, but trying to save pennies for the company only ever results in a much bigger cost. So that's my video on the 1998 So Longford disaster. It's going to be a free on the scale and this I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a plentiful production. All videos on the channel are creative comments attribution share like licensed playful videos produced by me John in a currently moderate corner of southern London UK. All I have to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music. Can you play us out please? [music] >> [music] >> It is close to 400 p.m. on Monday the 2nd of January 2006 and a bad Reichenhole ice rink skating and swimming hall is nearing the end of its day open to the public. Due to poor weather, the site is due to close in a few minutes. People skate around the rink, making the most of the time that they have left in their public skating session. Around 50 people are under the building's wooden roof, which was constructed in the 1970s during the exciting and ambitious sports interest that followed the Olympics in Munich in 1972. However, as the screeching of the skates and general fuss of people moving around fills the air, a sudden crash and bang interrupt the usual drone of the sports center. This interruption would be deemed as one of the worst building failures in German history. Today we look at the bad Reichen Hall ice rink disaster. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my YouTube Patreon and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel's videos when you can from just £1 per month and the links are in the pin comment below. >> [music] >> bad and it's an ice rink. So, our story goes back to the preparations for the 1972 Munich Olympics. In the increasing excitement in sports interest that such events generate, the town of Bad Reichenhole commissioned a combined ice skating, tennis, and swimming hall. This would cost at the time 15.4 million Deutsch marks. Construction of the hall complex on behalf of the city of Bad Reichenhole began in 1971 and was completed in 1973. It was two main buildings connected via an intermediate building that acted as complexes, reception, technical rooms and a main entrance. In addition, there was a restaurant with access to both halls on the first floor. Now, the halls are where the building was rather interesting. In order to accommodate an ice rink in one and a swimming pool in the other, the building needed to have vast open unobstructed spaces. You know, you can't have a support beam in the middle of your ice rink, can you? Otherwise, it would end up with more than its fair share of collisions. The building had to accommodate a competition ice rink of 60x 30 m. Thus, it had a total ground area of 75x 48 m. They need a large self-supported roof structure and this is where the sports complex was kind of unique compared to other buildings. This was in the roof members. It was made up of glued laminated wood girders 48 m in length made up of three 16 m sections connected together via glued finger joints. These 48 m long roof supports consist of an upper girder and a lower girder with cross- laminated lateral webboards. This whole arrangement created a box girder. They were officially limited to a height of 1.2 m. However, the design called for webs to be at least 2.87 m. So with this conflict, the contractor civil engineer should have applied for a approval for an individual case provided by the supreme building authority of the free state of Bavaria in order to get the larger webs allowed. However, no such approval would ever be found. Anywh who, the box girders were manufactured by two subcontractors using a URA resin glue which had insufficient water resistance when assembling the wooden boxes of the girders. You see, with a box girder, the inside also runs a risk of exposure to moisture in comparison to a solid girder where the inside is sealed off. So these box girders were mounted on concrete columns to connect the girders and to provide pins for the roof material and lateral support. A secondary girder is provided. This spreads the weight across the different main girder sections. The whole project as I mentioned before involved multiple subcontracted contractors who then subbed out to other contractors. But one main constant throughout the whole project was that the city of Bad Reichenhole owned the building, was in charge of its maintenance, and was in charge of its licensing for use. But sadly, none of that would matter when the snow started to fall in late 2005 and the start of 2006. The disaster. 2005's final days proved to be a bit of a white out across Europe with more than usual amounts of snowfall. But the bad Reichenhole ice rink building now in its 33rd year, nothing really seemed untoward. The 2nd of January 2006, this was the same story. The snow had built up on the building's roof, but it hadn't affected operations up until this point. The public came and went, coming in for a swim sessions and ice skating. At around lunchtime, structural engineers were called in to examine the building, as some concerns had been raised as to whether the structure could withstand any more snow. It was deemed to be below the tolerable limit. Regardless, as a precaution, management cancelled the evening's ice hockey training session and opted to close up early at 400 p.m. at the end of the public skate session. Towards the end of the session, there were roughly 50 people in the ice skating hall, likely getting their money's worth out of every last minute of slipping and sliding around. But just five minutes before the complex was to shut its doors and without any warning, the roof structure spanning the ice rink dramatically fell. The roof timbers and snow crashed down into the center of the rink, burying all those still on the ice. Once the dust settled, the tree gravity of what had happened could be seen. The entire roof covering the rink had collapsed in. Immediately, emergency calls were made and those inside the complex fled the building with some staying to help rescuing people from the periphery of the collapse area. Emergency workers started pouring through the rubble and snow in the search of survivors and any potential bodies. What was unknown though was that the ceiling had buried three adults and 12 children. A helicopter would be called in to provide search light to help out with the responders in the dark evening that followed the disaster. In addition to the police, ambulance, and fire services, sniffer dogs and the army were also drafted in for the rescue works. In total, it was estimated between 300 and 500 firefighters, police, and soldiers would help out at the scene. The reason for that such large variation is cuz both of my sources, the BBC and Guardian, differ on the exact number by about 200. Rescue works were temporarily paused on the third due to further risks of structural failure. However, the rescue would resume early hours in the morning of the 4th. As time went on, the death toll would rise to 15, 12 of whom being children. The rescue effort would conclude finally on the 5th of January when the last body was removed from the wreckage. In addition to the dead, over 30 people are injured with three of them seriously injured requiring severe hospital treatment. The remaining parts of the complex would eventually be demolished over the following years. And after much messing around by the local government as to their plans for the site, no real development would be undertaken, apart from a memorial to the victims. But you know what was coming next. Clearly, the building's demise had to be investigated, which leads us onto the investigation. So in the aftermath, multiple case studies would delve into the collapse, but the initial investigations were undertaken by engineers from safety firm TUV and the technical University of Munich as well as other advisers from the University of Berlin. This involved on-site surveys as well as scouring over the historical design principles and importantly the maintenance of the structure over its lifetime. The snow was the first port of call, but it was found to have not been dense enough to cause structural issues. This pointed towards the structure itself. First of all, the buildings over in large box girder webs were clear to see [music] and after some searching for official records, no special permissions were found to have been filed, meaning the engineers had just gone along with the amended design illegally. It was also found that no check was made of the static calculation of the structure. A shame as there were reported errors in this calculation. But there is more to the error than just the [music] size of the beam. The type a box girder was also to blame in that it was hollow in its center. This allowed moisture to ingress through the structures glue joints. On top of this, over the years, there had been a number of leaks due to roof membrane failure which had [music] allowed moisture and water to directly sit on the beams. This had hastened the degrade of the glue joints. Also, the glue selected for the roof was suspect as well, which was ura formaldahhide. This adhesive is very susceptible to moisture which weakened the beams below the required strength to hold itself up and multiple tons of snow. Although in a well-maintained structure, the snow would have been shrugged off. However, after poor design choices and even worse maintenance, clearly the roof was severely weakened over its lifetime. Investigators found that the roof failed at the start of the east side along with the first three beams which caused the rest of the roof to fail. The failure was summarized in modeling of the performance of timber structures working group 3 robustness of systems. The structure safety margin was significantly below 2.0 zero which was too low anyway as a result of errors in the [music] static calculation and structural defects was constantly further reduced over a period of the building service life due to external influences [music] particularly the deterioration of the general finger joints and glue lines on the lower girders until the collapse of the arena took place on the 2nd of January 2006 triggered by the snow load so due to negligence in the building's design and construction ruction. A number of people were charged criminally. Criminal proceedings would take a number of years and would result in a few discontinues in some of the charges due to the accused dying as well. Their work was dating back from 1972 and by the time that they were taken to court, some of them were in their late 60s and early '7s. On the 18th of November 2008, the design of the roof, who was 68 years old at the time of the court case, was found guilty of negligent homicide and was sentenced to 18 months suspended imprisonment. However, the court did actually acquit the architect of the building and another engineer who had inspected the building in 2003 without noticing the moisture was weakening the laminated [music] wood beams. So, that's my video on the bad Reichenhole ice rink disaster. It's going to be a three on my disaster scale. This is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is plentiful production. All videos on the channel are creative coms attribution shite licensed playing videos produced by me John in the currently okay corner of southern London UK. And all that's left to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music. Play us out please. These rather unassuming rocks have a story to tell. They look peaceful just off the coast of the beautiful Greek island of Paris. But like many unassuming pieces of coastline, it can be dangerous when you get too close. This would be the story in the year 2000 when a massive rope ferry running an autopilot struck and sank at [music] these very not so scaryl looking rocks. Today we're looking at the MS Express Amina and the series of events that led to her final resting place. The disaster would leave many people scratching their heads as the collision shouldn't have happened. She was meant to be on a different course and even if collision had occurred, it shouldn't have caused her to sink, but we'll look into this and find out later why. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my YouTube, Patreon, and Kofi members. If you want early access to the channel videos, then you can win just £1 per month. As always, the links will be in the pin comment below. And also, whilst you're there, check out some of my other bits like merch and other bits and pieces that I sell on my reverb page, as well as the music I make [music] background. This is the MS Express Samina. It was a Ropax ferry. More simply put, it is a roll-on rolloff passenger carrying ferry. But its life didn't start out as the express. Instead, a few name changes and a country change would stand between the start of its life and the end of its life. It actually began working as the MS course under the French flag. She was built at Shantiier the Atlantic Stair France for the company called CGT. This first chapter would last from her birth in 1966 until 1982 where she sailed under three French operators Compan general translantique compan general trans Mediterranean and society national maritime course Mediterranean. I know I butchered all of that French pronunciation. Anyh who, from 1982 she would get her first name change to MS Golden Vina under the control of the Stability Maritime Company. This change of name and company also coincided with the change of her flag to that of the country of Greece. 6 years later, she would be sold yet again in 1988 to the Agapitos brothers. She was pressed into service in the Aian Sea. Her final sale and name change would happen in 1999 when ownership was taken up by the interestingly named company Manown Flying Dolphins, a Greekbased ferry company. Her name was then changed to her final iteration as the MS Express Samina. Again, tasked with sailing around the Aian Sea. We are very close to the disaster in our story, but first we need to quickly talk about the ship's particulars. She had a length of 115 m with a width of 18.1 m and a draft of 4.36 m with the Imperial units just listed here on the screen. Her two engines powered her gross registered tonnage of 4,455 up to a top speed of 21 knots, 39 km or 24 mph. She had a capacity of 1500 passengers and up to 170 vehicles in which all of this was accommodated over 11 levels. She had thin stabilizers as well as an autopilot system which aided in keeping the ship on a predetermined course or bearing without the need of human intervention. Although often it is required that the system is under constant supervision. Her hole was subdivided by transverse bulkheads into 12 watertight compartments with 11 controlled watertight doors. She was relatively forgettable as a ship and was built to the standards of her time. Although by the late 1990s she was getting long in the tooth, approaching 35 years old, which makes me feel very old being 36. But her remarkableness would end on the evening of the 26th of September, 2000. Now it's time to move on to the next part of our video, the disaster. It is around4 5 in the evening on the 26th of September 2000 and the MS Express Amina is about to leave the port of Prey, Greece. She has 473 passengers and 61 crew aboard. In addition to this, she also has 17 trucks and 34 cars. She is bound for the island of Paros on an oval journey that has stops at the aforementioned Paris as well as Nexus, Ikira, Samos, Patmas, and Lipy. Her estimated time of arrival at the port of Paris is meant to be around 18 minutes past 10 p.m., but this would not be the case. At roughly 8:00, the ship passed the Cape of Calos of Keifnos Island. Visibility was reported at the time to be around 7 to 10 nautical miles. In order to counteract the ship's bumping around on the sea, the crew deployed the stabilizer fins. However, unbeknownst to the crew, only the starboard stabilizer unfolded. At around the same time, the ship was placed into autopilot. With the predicted course, she should have happily sailed along this line. However, with just a starboard stabilizer deployed, she was actually being dragged off course towards starboard. This shouldn't have been too much of an issue as it would have been picked up by the crew on the bridge. However, everyone had kind of bucked off, leaving the ship automatically cruising towards here. This was an eyelet around 3 nautical miles away from the entrance way to the port of Paris. At around 10 minutes 10, a member of crew had actually checked the course on the MS Express Amina and realized that they were heading to a very very bad destination. They attempted to change the course, but at this point it was far too late. At 12 minutes 10, the ship hit the reef of Porislets on her starboard side. The collision caused three raking damages to the ship at both below and above the waterline. The largest gash was 6 m long above the water line and and also the crash caused severe damage to her starburst stabilizer, ripping it from the hull. The ship carried on on its bearing, but just 3 minutes after impact, she was beginning to list by 5° to starboard. Water was pouring in along a 3 m gash below the water line. This was where the stabilizer once was on the starboard side. It was also where the engine room was, and this was not very good. [music] Initially, none of the passengers on board really knew what was going on, but it would be hard to ignore as by 25 minutes 10, the ship was listing 14°. This then allowed water into the 6 m gash that was originally above the water line. Needless to say, this then further accentuated the list. A distress call was sent out and it was picked up by a nearby NATO exercise fleet. The ship's power supply subsequently failed, plunging the decks into darkness. As the ship continued to list, only three of its eight lifeboats aboard were able to be dispatched. At roughly 32 minutes 10, she had listed 33°. 18 minutes later, at 10 minutes to 11 p.m., the ship was lying on her side. Many had to jump into the water wearing life jackets. During a sinking, complete chaos had hit all those board. The crew started jumping off the ship themselves, leaving passengers to fend for themselves. This would contribute to the death toll later on. The first responders were made up of Royal Navy and Greek Port Authorities vessels as stated by BBC report. A helicopter from the aircraft HMS Invincible, which was exercising near Paros, rescued 12 survivors who were stranded on a rock. Two of them suffering from hypothermia. HMS Liverpool, HMS Cumberland, and RFA Fort George also joined the Greek military. Local fishing boats, pleasure craft, and the coast guard vessels in the huge rescue effort. Many survivors were stuck clinging to rock protruding from the sea. By the time 11 p.m. had come around, the ship was fully submerged. From start to finish, she had fully sunk in just under an hour. The sinking caused the death of 80 passengers. Interestingly, in addition to this death toll, one other person is attributed to the disaster. They were in Paris at the time of the accident. [gasps] They had died of a heart attack. This was the port officer on duty. Likely his demise was brought on from the stress of the disaster unfolding in front of him. The MS Expressina sank to the very bottom of the ocean where she is still to this day. Almost soon as the waves calmed and her battered body settled amongst the fishes, divers were sent down to the wreckage. This was in preparation for the investigation. Officially sanctioned divers were sent down to the wreckage and video was shot and important locations of the vessel were noted. However, it was also said that before this happened, some unknown divers went down to the wreckage. This leads us onto the next part of our story, the investigation and aftermath. In January 2001, the Court of Appeal for the ANC appointed a five-member committee to investigate the cause of the sinking of the MS Express Samina. Their report was released a day before the first anniversary of the accident. During the investigation, the crew came onto extreme scrutiny. Her captain and mate were arrested and charged with manslaughter due to, as stated by a tourist guide website named Greek Island Hopping. Allegations that at the time of the collision, the crew had left the bridge to watch a replay on one of the ship's TVs of a goal in an important local soccer match. The results from the report resulted in charges against 17 persons. This included ship's crew, Coast Guard, and shipping company officers. but put a pin in that for later on. But although the crash was the result of clear negligence in the ship's navigation, another investigation would be launched to find out the reason why she sank as it was fairly thought that the extent of their damage shouldn't have resulted in a rapid lack of buoyancy. The investigation was called investigation into the sinking of the Rorow passenger ferry express by a Papin Icel. This would delve into the mechanics of the sinking, especially when she probably shouldn't have with the damage she had sustained. She had watertight compartments after all. However, it was found that nine of her 11 watertight doors hadn't been sealed off. The crew had often sailed with the doors open instead of closed. For example, in proper operation, the doors should always be shut and only open to allow access, after which they should be closed immediately. The crew had left them open and was planned to close them from the ship's main panel after any incident. However, due to the collision happening in the engine room, remote control was lost during the power loss. This then relied on the crew going to close the doors individually locally, which clearly didn't happen. The sinking was solely down to the fact the doors were left open, which of course was ultimately down to the incompetence of the crew. Now the legal ramifications were pretty bad for the indicted persons. One would avoid criminal proceedings though by using a less than ideal trick as on the 29th of October 2000 the manager of Manoan Fine Dolphins decided on not being alive anymore via the help of gravity out of a six-story window. The ship's officer would be found guilty of criminal negligence and was sentenced to 19 years while the captain received a 16-year sentence. Three other members of crew were handed down much lighter sentences ranging from 15 months to 1.5 years. In the aftermath, griefs would put on a limit of 30 years for service life of vessels in the country's fleet, although this would be relaxed with a provision of following strict safety standards. Interestingly, Manoan Flying Dolphins, the ship's owner, was planning on going public with a stock offering around the same time of the crash, but understandably, they walked back. this plan. Interestingly, the company is still in operation today, albeit under the name Helenic Seaways. So, that's my video on the MS Express Sinai. It's going to be a five on my scale. And this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is plain production. All videos on the channel Creative Commons attribution share light licensed plenty very warm corner of southern London, UK. And all I have to say is thank you very much for watching. And Mr. Music, can you play us out please? [music] >> [music] [music] >> There are very few things more dramatic than a catastrophic failure. of a massive structure. Often such events are quick and shocking. And on the 1st of October 2019, this kind of drama was experienced in Taiwan when a crossing over a harbor in So Yilan County destroyed the relative calm of the fishing town. It would be captured on CCTV and its collapse would cause the loss of many lives. However, the disaster was bizarre as the bridge was barely 20 years old, making it pretty young in the grand scheme of structures. [music] So, what caused its severely premature unexpected self undering and subsequent attempt at becoming a submarine? Structural failure. Well, settle in. Today, we'll be looking into the Nanfang Dao bridge collapse. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my YouTube, Patreon, and Kofhei members. Thank you so much for your financial support, and if you'd like to support the channel financially, then you can from just £1 per month. And as always, the links, as well as all my merch links, will be in the pin comment below. [music] Background. Today we're looking at a country that doesn't often come up on this channel. That is of Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China. I know both countries I have citizenship in, i.e. the UK and Republic of Ireland, don't actually recognize Taiwan as a country, but without going down a whole political rabbit hole, well, no, I'll upset someone or everyone, I'll just refer to the relevant place names in the Republic of China. So, now I've made that clear as mud. Let's look at this. The Nanfangal fishing port in Su Township. It's in the northeastern side of the island. The fishing port opened to maritime traffic in 1923 and over the years it would become the largest supply to Taiwan of mackerel. To get to this point, the port would expand multiple times. This included a road crossing over the entrance to the fishing port and a larger shipping dock site. This allows for road users to travel over the harbor embankment from the mainland section, creating a kind of ring road, past a bit, which I found rather humorously called the monkey nose. For our story, we go back to the mid1 1990s and the plan for a new crossing in the area, which is the subject of our disaster, but it was the replacement to an older crossing. Now, I found it difficult finding much information on the original bridg's history. If you know any more, please let me know in the comments below. The new bridge will be something of a unique addition to the island of Formosa in that it's the only single steel arched bridge on the island. The way this type of bridge works, at least in our case, is that it is a tied arch with cables suspended from it which support the deck below. That's the TLDDR. But let's go a bit deeper into this. The bridge's deck that is the part that the vehicles travel along is made up of a steel box girder supported by a split tie- beam structure beneath. It creates a continuous box girder structure with each end connected to abutments. The arch has a center section which at each end splits off to join up with the abutments and split sections of the decking box girder like this. It creates a visually striking look to me. It kind of looks a bit like a banana skin being split off. To hold the deck to the arch, there are 13 hangers. They are numbered, very surprisingly, 1 to 13. The hangers were made up of bundles of steel. The first and the last had 17 strands, whereas the intermediate ones had 13 strands. In total, the bridge had a length of 140 m or 460 ft, a width of 15 m or 49 ft, and a passage height for vessels of 18 m underneath. Construction began in 1996 and would take 2 years before it welcomed its first member of the public in 1998. The bridge had been commissioned by the Ministry of Transport and Communications and penned by MAA Consultants. The bridge had an expected life of 50 years. But like all things to live a long life, you need to take care of your health. You know, bridge health by inspecting it regularly as part of a maintenance schedule. I think I kind of went off my analogy there, but you get the idea. Like I say to my kids, look after your stuff. And that was done at the Nanfang Gal Bridge, right? Well, no. It wouldn't be inspected for 18 years with the first time it being looked at in 2016. During this inspection, some issues were discovered that the expansion joints were warping, requiring 10 million Taiwanese dollars of repairs. That's nearly £260,000 at the time. So, kind of like £300,000. I think I've got that worked out roughly. The works would run between 2017 in 2018 where the joints were cleaned and repaired and the bridge would never have any issues again. The disaster. It is the morning of the 1st of October 2019 and around the fishing port of Nanfangal, it's just like any other day. Traffic is pinging along nicely and as the small fishing boats gently bob on the water below, some are even mowled up directly beneath the bridge. We can see in this CCTV footage that close to 9:30 in the morning, the calmness would be interrupted. An oil tanker truck is approaching the bridge. It passes along the structure. However, just before it clears the crossing, the structure dramatically fails, plunging the road and the lower portion of the single arch into the water below. The crashing down bridge crushed a number of fishing boats sat below the roadway. This all became submerged. The tanker truck upon impacting with the boats below ignited its contents and started to burn them. A section of the bridge had collapsed onto three boats, trapping their occupants who were sleeping inside. Emergency calls flooded in, reporting on the disaster, and first responders arrived shortly after. Members of the armed forces were pressed into the search and rescue efforts in addition to the usual fire, police, and ambulance services. The rescue effort would draw in an Air Force helicopter, fishing vessels, and over 60 military personnel, including Navy divers, into the search for survivors. The tanker truck driver amazingly survived the crash. He was pulled from the wreckage from nearby workers at a petrol station, but he didn't escape unharmed. He received serious injuries requiring intensive care and multiple surgeries. Over the rescue mission, 10 people will be sent off for hospital immediately for emergency care as they were gradually recovered through the recovery mission. Mainly these people were from the crushed mored boats under the bridge. The search was hindered by many parts of the wreckage being pinned below the water line. After 3 days, the final body was recovered. On the same day, the official death toll was announced and this was six with a total injured numbering 12. Interestingly, the six dead were mainly made up of migrant workers from Indonesia and the Philippines. The wreckage would be cleared away pretty quickly with the arch being recovered and sent off for scrap on the 10th of October 2019. A new bridge will be built on the site starting in 2020, welcoming its new first passengers in December 2022. But how did a pretty new bridge fail so suddenly without warning? Well, the Ministry of Transport and Communications would seek to find this out with an official inquiry. The investigation. But Taiwan's safety board began its investigation pretty much immediately after the collapse, taking photographs of the failed structure, diving into its design and history, as well as interviewing witnesses of the failure. The failures beginnings were fairly easy to see as the CCTV showed the hangers snapping, allowing the deck to plunge into the water. In addition to this, post- disaster inspections saw frayed cables [music] in some of the hangers. So the way that the hangers were attached to the central section of the road deck, they encased in a steel box. This had to be protected from water ingress as [music] to not fall foul of corrosion. This was provided by waterproof seam seals. It was found that over the years this seal had become brittle and had failed, allowing water to enter the housing, which being the area that it was, had a high salt content, perfect conditions for rust and corrosion. The hanger anchors at positions number 10, 11, and 12, and 13 had corroded to a point where they had virtually no strength left. All it needed was for a heavy object to overload the last few cable strands hanging on. This came along in the form of a tanker truck at 9:30 in the morning on the 1st of October. The failure started at strand 11, followed by the surrounding strands. It was estimated that the amount of residual strength for the remaining cables was between 22 and 27%. [music] The failing seals should have been noticed. Well, that was if the bridge was actually being looked at, which clearly it wasn't. But what was the lack of inspections of the bridge? Well, a strange quirk was that the roadway across the bridge for much of its life wasn't considered part of the national highway system. This meant that it would have needed some special maintenance regime which it didn't have. Thus, the bridge fell through the cracks of bureaucracy. This would result in charges for involuntary manslaughter against six individuals. But I can't seem to find out what happened to them beyond 2022. Four of the indicted were associated with the bridge construction and two were former officials from the port. So again, if you know anything, please let me know in the comments below. So that's my video on the Nanfangal bridge disaster. Taiwan's first bridge failure not caused by a natural disaster. It's pretty impressive that the bridge actually lasted that long. So it's time for my scale. It's going to be a free and this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is plentiful production. All videos on the channel are created common attribution share like licensed pliff videos produced by me John. They're currently nice. Well, actually not very nice actually. It's raining right now. Corner of southern London, UK. And all I have to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music. Play us out, please. [music] New Zealand is unarguably a beautiful place. So unarguable is this that the country has a thriving tourism industry. Its flora and fauna draw in many visitors to its national parks, both domestic and foreign. This is the same story at this place, Cave Creek. and this rather unassuming viewing platform. It offers views down the creek 30 meters below. Viewing platforms are relatively common occurrences at beauty spots and the one at Cave Creek looks just like any other. On the 28th of April 1995, 18 people would walk onto the platform taking in the sights. [music] But 14 of them this would be their final act. The platform would show its true colors plunging all aboard into the ravine below. Today we're looking at the Cave Creek disaster. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my YouTube, Patreon, and Kofi members. Thank you so much for your financial support and if you'd like to support the channel financially, then you can from just £1 per month. And as always, the links as well as all my merch links will be in the pin comment below. >> [music] >> background. This is the national park of Papara. It is situated on the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand. It spans a 430 km squared or 170 square mile area and although officially open to the public in 1987, its beginnings as a park goes way back to the 1970s. Regardless, in the early 1990s, the Department of Conservation says has a plan for one of its areas called the Cave Creek Concept Plan. This would encourage visitors to view the cave and cast areas. often overlooked by visitors. This was because viewing these areas from the ground was far less spectacular than looking down into it. A viewing platform was suggested in the 1992 plan. This would be designed and constructed in 1994 with a small track running up to the platform. The hope was that the platform would result in visitors not going off tracks and sticking to the authorized walking areas as vast parts of the surrounding area have been trampled by visitors. Anyways, the platform was designed as such. The platform foundation was made up of three rows of wooden fence posts totaling 11. They varied between 110 and 140 mm in diameter and were driven directly into the ground as piles. The distances between each of the parts was not uniform and looked rather scattered in each of their three rows. Nailed to the piles were free timber bearers. These were 150 by 50 mm. However, during construction, it was found that three of the pearls were not aligned to the bearers. As such, packing wood was used to make up the misalignment. Attached at right angles to these were the seven 200 mm by 50 mm timber joists. And on top of the joists were the timber decking planks. The whole ordeal was held together with nails mainly 100 mm in length. Some were installed end nailed and others were installed skew nailed. Now I'm not a woodworking boss man as you can see here from my railway sleeper catastrophe. Anyways, the platform was built offsite in kit form and helicoptered in. Final finishing was done on site where the packers were added in to cover up the inconsistent pile placement. To finish off the project, concrete steps were added with timber treads and a timber handrail was also added to stop people just walking off over into the ravine. The platform resulted in a canal lever structure defying gravity above the some 30 m drop below. The total project including the platform approach track preparation and other associated works came to $11,000 New Zealand dollars. It had a maximum capacity of five persons. However, no sign was ever installed on site. The engineer who designed the platform was not an engineer. Instead, he was a mechanic. And after its installation in 1994, nothing at all would ever go wrong. But disaster. It is the 28th of April 1995. And today, 20 Poly Techch students from the Thai Pini College in Greymouth are visiting the National Park. Part of this visit involved walking up the narrow path up to the Cave Creek viewing platform. The tour group is led by a Department of Conservation Field Center manager and another Department of Conservation member. Another group from the college had gone up to [music] the same spot the day before. Interestingly, a park worker had noticed that the platform was flexing under the weight of the people. This was reported to the center manager, the same one leading the tour group on the 28th. During the walk to the platform, a small group split off in the bush to view some other bits and pieces. This was a Department of Conservation member, the teacher from the college and three students. They would catch up to the platform slightly later on. The crowd shuffled onto the platform around 11:25 in the morning. The number of persons on the platform was 18. Once the full weight of the bodies was on the structure, it suddenly leaned to a 30° angle and slid off its supports down into the creek below. So quick was the event that the only noise heard among the creek was a short burst of screams, then a massive crash. The site's remoteness would prove to be fatal. Shortly after the collapse, the second group reached the place that the platform had once been situated. Seeing the destruction, they ran to the group's vehicles to try and find help from the road. Seeing the keys, not in the vehicles, the DOC officer went to the scene of the collapse, and a student ran along the road with a note with information describing the accident. By roughly 12:15 p.m., the student managed to phone the police at Greymouth. Understandably, because of the remoteness of the platform, the first responders would experience a very tough time trying to assist the survivors. The first first responder to reach the site was a Greymouth police officer. They arrived on foot, reaching the survivors 2 hours after the collapse. Ambulances dispatched from Graouth and Westport reached the [music] road nearest the platform first, followed by helicopters from the Royal New Zealand Air Force. This was dispatched from Christ Church. Of the 18 aboard the platform, only four would survive. Of the dead, 13 were students. The 14th was the visitor center manager, the same one who had been informed the day before of the unusual flexing of the platform. He apparently was planning to look at this on his fateful trip. In the immediate aftermath, all of the structures owned by the Department of Conservation were inspected, and of the over 500 checked, 65 would be closed for immediate remediation work. Later on, a memorial plaque was revealed on the site in April 1996. And although the track was reopened shortly after, no new platform would ever be built. So needless to say, an investigation would have to follow. The investigation. So in the aftermath, a commission of inquiry was set up headed by District Judge Graeme Noble. They were appointed on the 18th of May 1995. A preliminary meeting was held in Greymouth on the 14th of June with the main hearing to start on the 11th of July 1995. In order to investigate the platform's demise, a scale model was built according to the asbuilt structure on site. During this, the serious designs of deficiencies came to light, especially after interviewing the four people who built the platform. One was quoted saying, "Not much was discussed about the way the platform was to be built. We had with us a post pile driver and a chainsaw. I do not think we measured out accurately where the posts were to go. It also came to light that there were no plans on site and when the piles were driven into the ground, they were not at any set depth. Once completed and pre-construction of the actual platform, the workers used a chainsaw to cut the piles to the correct height. Now, the materials used for the platform to hold it together was also a major concern. The original design had called for bolts, but due to an error in forgetting the appropriate drill during the construction period, nails were substituted. This meant that during the failure, the structure actually pulled away from its piles, a bit like this. In addition, the platform wasn't attached to the steps, which would have acted as a counterwe. The lack of capacity sign also came into play where 18 persons were allowed onto a structure only intended for five. Finally, it was also discovered that the platform was designed by the department's mechanic, not a structural engineer. As such, the design was really lacking in any kind of stress testing. But that's not really the designer's fault. Instead, more of a systematic issue with the Department of Conservation as a whole, where budgets were so low that they couldn't afford the correct person for the job. The inquiry would summize the collapse as such. From the engineering evidence, it is clear that the approximate or dominant cause of the collapse was that the platform was not constructed in accordance with sound building practice. This resulted in a total and catastrophic failure. So the platform was clearly not up to scratch. Built by an organization that was cutting corners to meet its budget constraints. And although these are excuses, it is inexcusable. There was no criminal repercussions for the state due to the law in New Zealand at the time not allowing the state to charge itself. However, compensation totaling over 2 million New Zealand dollars would be paid out to the disaster's victims. So, that's my video on the Cave Creek disaster. There's going to be a free on my scale and this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is plenty of foot production. All videos on the channel creative commas attribution share like licensed plenty of short videos are produced by me John and the currently quite nice warm corner of southern London UK and all that's left to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music can you play out please [music] >> [music] >> Look at this satellite image. It's a rather unassuming looking industrial site. It might even seem a bit abandoned. It's not looking the best maintained with all these rusty structures. However, it is not rust caused by neglect. is actually the corroding aftermath of one massive explosion registering 2.4 in the RTER scale and being felt over 28 mi away. Amazingly though, when looking at these pictures, no one was killed here. But what is this place? Well, it is the subject of our video today. It is the Bunsfield oil storage facility. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you'd like to support the channel financially, then you can from just £1 per month. As always, the links will be in the pin comment below. [music] Bunsfield. This is the Bunsfield oil depot. is around here on my map, just outside the frequently cited most beautiful town in England. It's in the county of Herfordshire if you wanted to know that, although you probably didn't. The site for the Bunsfield oil depot opened for use in 1968. It became over the years a vital cog in the British fuel industry, reaching the fifth largest oil depot in the UK, having pipelines radiating out from it across the country. The site has three main areas of operation under their own companies. One is the Herford share oil storage limited, a joint venture between Total UK Limited and Chevron Limited, and it was under the day-to-day management of Total UK. Another site is owned by British Pipeline Agency Limited, a joint venture between BP Oil and Shell Oil UK. Both assets were owned by UK Oil Pipelines Limited. And finally, another site to the south was owned by BP Oil UK. Vast amounts of fuel was pumped and stored on site from dedicated tank farms. The tanks themselves form the primary containment of hydrocarbons. If there was a leak, then there was a secondary containment in the form of retaining wall buns provided. If all that failed, there was tertiary containment. This was in the form of drainage and catchment areas. The secondary and tertiary forms of containment were focused on limiting environmental contamination. Delivery from the site was mainly done via lorry of which over 400 per day could be serviced and dispatched out to customers. This supplies petrol and diesel to petrol stations and jet fuel to Heathro, Gatwick and Luton airports. This equates to roughly 8% of UK oil storage capacity. The split of fuels is roughly half aviation and half everything else, including the petrol and diesel. Needless to say, this means that the site is one massive potential explosion risk. It had a hazards planning consent to store up to 194,000 tons of hydrocarbon fuels, although it's rarely at full capacity in day-to-day operation. So, when the tanks are being filled, you have to make sure you don't overfill it. And that's where our sponsor for today comes in. Sorry, I'm only joking. Anyway, at Bunsfield, this was done via level gauges, which would give operators in the control room an indication of the tank level. There were three alarms that could be given to operators. User high, which could be set by the supervisor to indicate an intervention was required. This was if they wanted to say fill up a tank only halfway. High level. This was set in the tank below its maximum working level. And finally, there was a high high level alarm set below the final safety systems kick-in threshold. Speaking of which, that final safety system which operators had to their disposal was an additional independent system. This was an independent highle switch. When working as intended, it would automatically shut down filling if being overfilled. The system made use for float to detect the fluid level. Kind of like the float in your toilet system. These are vital components as to not overfill your tank. So much so that the site made sure that every gauge was working to precision. Right. The disaster. This is tank 912. And on the evening of the 10th of December 2005, it is about to be filled up with some top tier good petroleum. It is equipped with its gauge and independent highle switch, but a tank has been problematic in the past. It had been serviced in August the same year, and even though apparently fit for use, its gauge would often freeze and show incorrect readings. So much so, it was common for it to get stuck that operators often ignored this. The tank was set up to receive petrol from the South Pipeline. Fuel gushed in and the level gradually showed rising on the operator's screen. However, at around 3:05 in the morning on the 11th of December, the gauge stopped registering an increase in fuel. The filling of petrol continued. Now, the gauge had the ability to give an audible warning when the tank was reaching full, and the operators had been trained to react to these audible warnings. However, with the gauge frozen at its level, it didn't give any audible alarms and thus was not noticed by any of the operators. The fuel kept on filling the tank. Now, the independent system, you know, like the one that's in your toilet system, unbeknownst to the operators, was also inoperable. Basically, they were filling the tank blind. By 5:37 in the morning, fuel started to over top and spill out of the tank. Visible white vapor started to rise out, being seen from behind the bund walls. The clouds gradually spread out to a diameter of 360 m or 393 y. The windless morning meant the cloud didn't disperse, but just sat there increasing in density. It eventually rose over tank 12, which had been used for storing kerosene. The cloud was seen by workers on site and by waiting lorry drivers. This was at around 6:00 a.m., however, and 1 minute later, the first fire alarm would be sent out. The alarm created an audible alert in addition to starting the firefighting water pumps. But in a cruel turn of fate, one of the pumps generated a spark, igniting the now massive fuel air bomb. It was estimated that 250,000 L of fuel had escaped the tank. The explosion completely flattened the surrounding area, shattering glass for miles around, severely damaging the nearby industrial park and injuring over 40 people. But in a massive turn of luck, no one was killed in the explosion, which means I can hit this button again. The explosion woke up people across London and registered 2.4 on the RTER scale. Emergency services were called and firefighters would battle the flames for 5 days. It would be deemed the largest peacetime fire in the UK up until that point in history. The fire was extinguished on the 13th of December 2005, but not for long. In a final gasp of flaming defiance, one storage tank reignited in the evening. The firefighters decided it was easier to just let it burn out than attempting to extinguish it. The disaster would the UK fuel industry, putting greater pressure on the remaining national infrastructure. Panicked motorists began queuing up at petrol stations in the region, causing localized shortages. Long-d distanceance flights out of Heathro had to make additional stops in Europe for refueling. Six buildings closest to the blast had to be demolished with a further 30 needing severe repairs. In the following May in 2006, groundwater contamination was detected and this was from water runoff from the firefighting operations. Economically, the explosion was devastating for nearby businesses. An Azos warehouse was damaged, ruing some4 to5 million pounds worth of stock, killing the company's Christmas ambitions. But on a smaller scale, multiple companies couldn't get access to their premises for quite some time, essentially holding off any profit for them to make. Originally, the site had been built out of town, but as we've seen before over the years, industrial, commercial, and residential properties edged in on the site boundaries. Of course, there would be lawsuits, of which there were 2,700 claims totaling over 1 billion. The high court would rule that the companies involved in the disaster would be liable for 700 million of this claims. Five companies will be charged with criminal negligence brought by longtime friends of the channel, the health and safety executive as well as the environmental agency. The five companies were found guilty and given fines ranging from £1,000 up to 6.2 million. But what caused the explosion? Well, it was the spark from ironically the firefighting water pump. Okay. Okay. What was the cause of the overflow? Well, that is what the investigation was hoping to answer. The investigation, the incident would be delved into by the health and safety executive who would investigate, dig into witness statements as well as look at the vast wreckage of the site after the explosion. They found that the two main causes of the overflow were caused by the failure of the gauge and the failure of the independent safety system. Let's look at the latter first. So, the system could be installed to detect either a high or low fluid level. The system had a test lever which had three states, up, middle, and down. This allowed operators to test the system by moving the lever up to trigger an alarm. If set up for a highle scenario, the floats lever must not go into the low position, as this would essentially disable the system. To prevent the lever from going to the lower position, a padlock was provided. This would keep the lever in the middle position during normal operation. However, operators needed to do regular system checks. To do this test, they had to remove the padlock to push the lever into the upward position for testing out the alarm. However, it was found that after a test, the padlock had not been replaced, thus allowing the lever to go into the lower position, disabling the automatic shutff. Operators didn't know about the strange design quirk in this system. So now then what are the gauge and it's freezing during filling? Well, apparently this was a known issue since the tank had been serviced earlier in 2005. But no one thought to chase this up and lock the fault. Instead, they relied on the independent system preventing an overfill, which we now know was accidentally disabled. But surely someone would have seen the frozen gauge level. Well, operators often had to have multiple windows open on their computer screens during filling. due to multiple operations being undertaken at once. This meant that the operators would have to make a conscious decision to flick through to the active window to see the filling levels. Obviously, this would mean that some fillings would not be fully monitored. In addition, there were multiple management issues of not enforcing safety checks and trying to increase throughput of fuel. Reportedly, operators didn't have control over fuel flow rates either, which caused filling issues. Thus, the stage was set very well for a disaster. As for the groundwater contamination, it was found that the bun retaining walls had cracked during the fire and subsequent pressure from the water and fuel. This had allowed contamination to get into the ground. On the whole, the Bunsfield disaster was just another balls up of engineering, staff, and management issues. So that's my video on the Bunsfield disaster. It's going to be a two on my scale and this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a plain diff production. All videos in the channel are creative commas attribution shell like licensed playing difficult videos produced by me John in a very wet and windy corner of southern London UK. And all that's left to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music can you play us out please? [music] >> [music] [music] >> Sometimes landmarks become an indelible part of the landscape, but their existence is just taken as a given that they'll always be there. And in our case today this is in the form of a bridge which until its demise had been in place for over 100 years. But although standing for a century the hints river bridge on the evening of the 4th of March 2001 would suddenly collapse into the Duro River taking 59 lives with it. Our story today would have its cause linked to a mixture of things from illegal activity to the weather. Keep watching on the video to find out. Today we're looking at the hints Ribero bridge disaster, aka one of Portugal's worst traffic accidents. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my YouTube, Patreon, and Kofi members. If you want to support the channel financially, but you can from just £1 per month. As always, the links will be in the pinned comment below. >> [music] >> A bridge over a river in Portugal. This is a town of Castello De Pala, Portugal. It is near the Duro River, the largest river on the Iberian Peninsula. In the late 1880s, a plan was set to link the town to the nearby village of Entree Osrios to enable quicker transport times between the two population centers. Being a late 19th century project, the bridge would follow many of the design cues of other crossings across Europe. Chunky iron and steel trusses placed on masonary peers. Construction work on the site began in 1884 and welcomed its first crossing in 1886, allowing for shorter journey times from both foot and equestrianbased traffic. The site was on the curve of the Duro River next to the mouth of the Tamega River. This area would require parts of the bridge to be placed on top of sandy sediment-like ground. And remember this fact very importantly for later on. Its design was as follows. It had six pillars made up of stone sat at top concrete pile caps and timber caps. The steel and iron trust deck sat on top of the columns on a bearing surface. Usually, well, at least when built, only two of the pillars were consistently exposed to the flow of waters. These were numbers two and three. They were protected from the power of the river by rock fill placed around the pile caps. The bridge had a length of 300 m with two 25 m end spans and five continuous inner spans. Now pillars four and five were built on top of the sandy deposits that flanked the river on a bend and had no type of protection whatsoever unlike the rockfill of two and three. The roadway deck is made up of two beams 4.7 m high and was made up of an upper and lower flange connected by multiple truss bars inclined at 45°. The road surface was a concrete slab supported by the side beams. The metal beams are then supported by the pillars. After the bridge's opening, over the decades, it would be partially destroyed due the 1919 revolt, requiring repair works a decade later to restore its structural stability. To accommodate heavier and heavier vehicles trundling across the structure, repair works to its roadway would be required. This involved widening the concrete roadway in 1959. Over its greater than 100year life, the river bottom would gradually lower and widen, exposing more and more of the structure to the flow of water and vitally exposing the unprotected peers to the river. During the 1970s and 1980s, two dams were built near the bridge, one upstream and one downstream. This would change the characteristics of the river by retaining solid flow, slowing down the buildup of sediment around the bridge. By the late 1990s, it was looking its age and a few rather public concerns were made by both locals and officials as to the future of the structure. Hoping to push a newer, more modern crossing, in 1999, president of the municipality of Entree Osrios was quoted in an article by Gustaf Salee. We hope that tragedy will not be necessary for a new bridge to be built, but those words would turn out to be a premonition. A disaster. The start of 2001 along the Duro River was a very floody period. Between December 2000 and March 2001, there had been five floods in the region of the Hints Rabiro Bridge. The fifth of the major floods was well underway on the evening of the 4th of March 2001. Traffic for the most part had remained pretty standard throughout the day. However, the intense flooding had further eroded the riverbed around the foundation piles of the bridge and today would be the day it couldn't take anymore. At around 2110 in the evening, a bus from the transportation company Asuro is approaching the bridge. It has 53 people aboard it, but at 2114 it is on the bridge along with three other cars. In total, at this moment in time, there are 59 people traveling across the crossing. At 21:15, the fourth pillar suddenly and without any warning gave way, crashing into the river below, sending down the two spans of bridge it was supporting. The four vehicles were plunged into the fast flow of the flood water. The fast current dragged the victims up to 30 kilometers downstream. Some of the victims bodies reached the currents of the Atlantic Ocean, depositing their remains as far as the north coast of Spain and France. Ultimately, no one who plunged from the bridge survived despite the best efforts of local first responders and search and rescue efforts. Portuguese Navy divers and helicopters would spend weeks retrieving bodies, but sadly due to the water flow, some would never be recovered. News of the collapse quickly spread across the country and by the next morning, Minister of Transport Gorg Kilho resigned from their position. A 70 kilometer detour would be set up for road users in lie of the crossing and multiple other structures across the country would be closed down for service awaiting emergency repairs. The bridge would eventually be replaced with the removal of the Rex crossing beginning in June 2001. The bridge's replacement carrying the same name was opened in May 2002, cited 7 m upstream. Another crossing was also built in the same area, increasing capacity later on. But although looking old, the bridgeg's disaster needed an explanation, which leads us onto the cause. In the aftermath of the collapse, investigators poured over the wreckage and looked at the water flows leading up to the collapse. Flows measured at the Carapetello and Toro dams between 6 p.m. and 2 p.m. had doubled on the day of the disaster. The beginning of the 2001 failure goes way way beyond the floods of late 2000 and early 2001. However, although the immediate cause was due to the extra pressure of the flood water undermining Pillar 4, the bridge shouldn't have been vulnerable. I mean, it had stood there for over a century. Investigators would have to look way back into the area's history, some 25 years before the collapse. You see, the sandy deposits along the Duo River proved to be very useful for building. Illegal extraction of sand had begun in 1975 directly next to the bridge for the construction of a nearby reservoir. This harvesting of sand wasn't legally allowed, but was unofficially ignored. The extraction reduced the sandbar around the bridge, turning the river from this photograph to this. After the reservoir was completed, dredging of the river continued for harvesting of sand a few kilometers upstream. This would have a catastrophic impact. This resulted in less sand making its way downstream, which in turn meant the depleted sand bar around the bridge couldn't be reformed. The depressions in the river bed created by the dredging upstream caused sand to become trapped and not flow downstream. Thus, the riverbed increased as the flow of water naturally carried away deposits. With this, it was basically exposing more and more of Pillar 4's foundations to the flow to the river. Between the 1920s and 2001, the riverbed had deepened for the best part of 20 m. During surveys in 1988, it was estimated that there was around 9 m of sand above the foundation of pillar 4. But by 1998, it was thought to be as low as 1 m. Basically, over the years, the foundations, particularly around pillar 4, was being dug out around it, causing a scour. Eventually, there wouldn't be enough riverbed to hold the pillar down, and at that point, disaster was assured. Data about the increase in riverbed depth had been collected over the years with multiple surveys being undertaken of both the river and the bridge and this was known by officials and locals at the time. Thus the complaints at the end of the 20th century where concerns were sparked over severely corroded iron sections and the general state repair of the bridge. Now some people would be charged for the disaster. Four engineers from Juna Automa de Estrella J AE and two engineers from a survey company would be criminally indicted for professional negligence. However, in 2006 all six were acquitted. So that's my video on the hints Ribero bridge disaster. It's going to be a four on my scale and this is all I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is a plentiful production. All videos on the channel are creative commission shell like licensed play videos which is by me John in a currently not so bad corner of southern London UK and all that's left to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music can you play us out please [music] This is St. Lauren nuclear power station. It currently operates two pressurized water reactors named B1 and B2 providing vital power to the region of central France. However, today we're not looking at the setup dating back to the 80s, but the site's predecessor power units rather predictably named A1 and A2. and cited here. Today, they are out of use, but each one would be the stage for two of France's worst nuclear reactor meltdowns. Rather neatly, each ranking a four on the ines scale. You're in luck today as we're looking at both incidents. Welcome to Plenty Difficult, and today we're going to have a little bit of a dive into the St. ly meltdowns of 1969 and 1980. This video wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my Patreon, YouTube, and Kofi members. If you want to support the channel financially, then you can from just £1 per month. And as always, the links will be in the pin comment below, as well as links to other bits and pieces I have up for sale, as well as the music and other random bits and pieces I get up to when I'm not making YouTube videos. >> [music] >> Nuclear power in central France. Before we begin, I've just got to say that this video has been on my list for years. [music] I actually started writing this script in 2023, but never really got around to finishing it. I don't really know why, but we are where we are. Our story will begin at the beginning of the power station at St. Lauren France was rather eager to get in on the nuclear power right from the 1950s beginning with the first building work at the country's first nuclear power station in 1952 called Vermaku nuclear site. Don't worry I won't go too much deeper into the French nuclear program apart from in the mid 1950s France decided to up its nuclear game in the face of the increasing east west tensions of the cold war. The country, as I mentioned before, commissioned its first nuclear reactor type in 1952. The country commissioned its first nuclear reactor type, the uranium natural graphite gas in 1956. This would be the same overall design involved in our little disasters later on before St. Lauren. France would build two power plants, the aforementioned Marul and the Chinon nuclear power plant. The St. Larent plant would be cited along the Leor River and was set to be home for two UNGG reactors. So how did this spicy machine work? Well, the design was of a gas cooled graphite moderated reactor. It was fueled with natural uranium constructed as fuel elements clad with an aluminium zirconium alloy. The fuel was mounted inside the graphite moderator via roughly 3,000 vertical chambers. So, the way the reactor generated power was from heating up its carbon dioxide coolant via the reactor's chain reaction. The coolant is pumped through the core and then into a heat exchanger where water is heated upon up in a separate circuit. Once heated, the water turns into steam and then turns turbines, which then in turn turns generators. And bing, bada boom, you've got your blackout breakfast avoiding leky. Basically, like everything, it's all down to boiling water to turn a turbine. Like nearly all reactors, they're equipped with control rods. These absorb the reactions neutrons, reducing the power. They can also be used to shut down the reactor when needed. Gas cooled reactors can run at much higher temperatures than other designs allowing for better efficiency but at a cost which is well its cost. They pose a much more moneyintensive investment which would ultimately be their downfall but we don't need to worry about that yet in this point of the video. The reactor was placed inside a steel vessel then inside a concrete structure. The reactor was placed above the steam generation section creating a tall but compact structure. The type of reactor was very similar to the Magnox over here in the UK. It also had the ability to produce weapons grade uranium. So that's my explanation of the reactors. Don't forget I am just a disembodied voice on the burners lephere. Anywh who work on the St. Laurent site began in 1963 with reactor A1 going online on the 24th of March 1969 with A2 construction beginning in 1966 and being completed in 1971. The site was operated by EDF. And as a side note, they supply my electricity here in South London as well. Right, so that's about a rough explanation of the reactors. Let's go on to our first meltdown at St. Laurent. 1969. It is the 17th of October 1969 and St. Laurent A1 had been online for just a few months. Post its 24th of March 1969 startup and part of its regulation and optimization period. The reactor was subjected to loads of different experiments and tests. As such, fuel channel loadings were different from normal operation configurations. The tests were done via hot test channels, basically an unfuel loaded channel through the reactor core. This could allow for experimental fuel and control rods to be tested without having to shut the reactor down. The hot test and fuel channels were serviced by the big old main handling device. However, it had proven to be rather unreliable, logging hundreds of issues over just a few months between the opening and October. The handling devices control system worked off punch cards. However, it would be found that there had been an address error during the reprinting of a card sometime between the 8th and 16th of October. The hot test channel was being used to test the loading of defueled fuel graphite logs. The error laden punch card was loaded and the main handling device went into action loading the graphite logs. However, it was not loaded into the hot test chamber. Instead, an active fuel containing channel received the graphite log. Operators didn't notice the error and in an effort to save time didn't do a flow test on the hot channel, which also might have highlighted the error. Almost as soon as the loading of the fuel channel with the extra material was complete, the temperature in the channel started soaring. What was happening was that the addition of graphite had caused a reduced flow of coolant gas to the channel. In a matter of seconds, the fuel aluminium zirconium alloy cladding began to melt. At 7:05 in the morning, the fuel, some nearly 50 kg of uranium, had melted. The reactor was shut down and it would be out of action for quite a while. The fuel that melted was luckily fairly newly inserted, meaning it wasn't heavily irradiated, but it would still be a big mess to clean up. Cleanup was done via remote controlled equipment. However, extra work via human intervention had to be also employed. Workers exposure time was limited to just 10 minutes per session. The reactor finally went back online nearly a year to the day on the 16th of October 1970, costing France's nuclear industry millions of Franks. The incident was played down to the French public with officials instead playing up the quick and efficient cleanup and restarting of A1. But another melting for spicy material would blight the big power plant just over a decade later. 1980. It is the 13th of March 1980 and on the face of the newer of the two gas cooled reactors at St. Laurent named A2, everything seemed to be running as normal. At around 5:00 p.m., loading was underway of two of the reactor course channels. Reactivity around the reactor vessel unexpectedly and dramatically rose. Just over 10 minutes later, the cladding rupture detection system triggered a shutdown. The control rods were dropped into the core, stopping the reactor. Operators were unsure of what the issue was, but due to the reactivity in the core, the first inspections could only be undertaken on the next day. During this check, [clears throat] the reactor had to be depressurized. A significant amount of uranium was thus been assumed to have melted. Further analysis of the reactor would take place the following week. was found that around 20 kg of uranium had melted and fallen to the bottom of one of the fuel channels. On the 27th of March, an inspection discovered that a metal sheet from a monitoring device had broken loose due to corrosion and had then blocked cooling to six channels in the reactor core. The meltdown would affect the reactor much more than what happened at A1, where the reactor would be shut down for over 3 years. The repair and cleanup works began in June 1980. Again, making use of remote controlled equipment and like before requiring human intervention involving nearly 2 years of radioactive dust collection and disposal. It was estimated that during the cleanup 29.6 terabules of rare gases and 0.37 terabules of iodine were released into the environment. This time, however, it wasn't really operator error, but a sign of the general poor management of the site. Reportedly, warnings were ignored that corrosion was present in the reactor vessel, most notably from an inspection in January 1980. Again, the event was played down and after the cleanup of A2, the reactor was pressed back into service. But the lifetime of domestically produced gas core reactors of France was nearing the end. The UNGG reactors across the country would be shut down in the following decade in favor for lightwater designs. This was rather the case at St. Laurent with A1 and A2 being shut down in the early9s in favor for the much newer and more modern B1 and V2 which still operate on sites to this day. But even though shutdown St. Lorent gas cooled reactors would cause a media stir when a documentary was released in 2015 the aftermath. So this 2015 documentary named nuclear the politics of lying would posit that after the 1980 meltdown EDF had released reactive material into the Leor River for 5 years after the accident. In response to the documentary, the then at the time of the release, head of EDF, Marcel Bto gave a rather humorous statement regarding the incident. It's still not much. It's not good, but it doesn't matter. If this was done, it was with the approval of the public authorities. We could not have done otherwise. Sediment samples along the river found traces of plutonium, which could only have come from the St. nuclear reactors. Although the levels were below a discernable health concern, an investigation and subsequent complaint without further action was filed against EDF in 2016. Both major instance at St. Lent would go in the 1990s on the ines scale at a level of four, which puts it on the same rating as incidents such as the Tokim Mora incident, which I've also done on a video, which will be linked around here. So, that's my video on the St. Laurent reactor meltdowns. Hopefully, I haven't angered EDF too much to shut off my electricity. So, it's scale time. It's going to only really be a one or maybe a two. And this is what I've got for my root cause analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments below. This is plenty of full production. All videos on the channel are creative commission shell like license. Playful videos produced by me John and currently quite [music] moderate corner of southern London UK. And all I have to say is thank you very much for watching and Mr. Music. [music] Play us out please. Heat. Heat. [music] [music] >> [music]