Everything about The Oppau Explosion totally explained
The
Oppau explosion occurred on
September 21 1921 when a
tower silo storing 4500
tonnes of a mixture of
ammonium sulfate and
ammonium nitrate fertilizer exploded at a
BASF plant in
Oppau, now part of
Ludwigshafen,
Germany, killing 500–600 people and injuring about 2000 more.
The plant began producing ammonium sulfate in
1911, but during
World War I when Germany was unable to obtain the necessary
sulfur, it began to produce ammonium nitrate as well. Ammonia could be produced without overseas resources, using the
Haber process.
Compared to ammonium sulfate, ammonium nitrate is strongly
hygroscopic, so the mixture of ammonium sulfate and nitrate clogged together under the pressure of its own weight, turning it into a plaster-like substance in the 20 m high silo. The workers needed to use
pickaxes to get it out, a problematic situation because they couldn't enter the silo and risk being buried in collapsing fertilizer.
To ease their work, small charges of
dynamite were used to loosen the mixture. The procedure was tried experimentally and was considered safe; it wasn't known at the time that ammonium nitrate was explosive. Nothing extraordinary happened during an estimated 20,000 firings, until the fateful explosion on September 21. As all involved died in the explosion, the causes are not clear. A theory is that the mixture changed and a higher concentration of ammonium nitrate was present.
Scale of the explosion
The explosion was estimated be equivalent to about 1–2
kilotonnes of TNT and was heard as a loud bang in
Munich, more than 300 km away. The
pressure wave ripped roofs off up to 25 km away and destroyed windows even farther away. In
Heidelberg (30 km from Oppau), traffic was stopped by the mass of broken glass on the streets.
About 80 percent of all buildings in Oppau were destroyed, leaving 6500 homeless. At
ground zero a 90 m by 125 m
crater, 19 m deep, was created.
According to some descriptions, only 450 tonnes exploded, out of 4500 tonnes of fertilizer stored in the warehouse.
Further Information
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