Emergencies and World Disasters

Sealed Below Deck: 402 Banned Pesticide Found in Sinking Ferry A locked cargo container holding 402 drums of endosulfan - 25 kg each, 10,000 kg total - lay sealed on D deck eighty-five feet underwater while survivors and bodies floated around the capsized ferry for six days. How did banned pesticide meant for a different ship end up aboard the MV Princess of the Stars, and who failed to stop it before departure? In this episode, we lay out the timeline and decisions that placed a banned, acutely toxic cargo on the flagship ferry during Typhoon Fengshen and the consequences that followed. You will hear how the drums were discovered, what the salvage recovered, and the unanswered questions that tied cargo manifest errors to a maritime catastrophe. Person: Nanette Tansingco Date: June 21, 2008 Location: MV Princess of the Stars, Manila-Cebu route Event: Capsizing during Typhoon Fengshen Cargo: 402 drums of endosulfan (25 kg each; 10,000 kg total) - 870 people were aboard the ferry when it capsized; 56 survived. - The ship measured 193 m length, 29 m width, gross tonnage 23,824, built 1984 and refitted to increase capacity from 554 to 1,992. - The 402 drums were discovered sealed in a forty-foot container on D deck by a diver on June 27, six days after the sinking. - Salvage operations led by Titan Salvage began September 24, 2008; the last drum was confirmed recovered October 11, 2008. - Approximately 200,000 liters of fuel were recovered and cleared by around October 17, 2008.

Sixteen Inches from Disaster: How Skagit's Span Suddenly Fell Sixteen inches was the difference between safe passage and sudden collapse when a permitted oversize load struck the Skagit River bridge on the evening of May 23, 2013 - a fracture-critical span built in 1955, struck repeatedly over decades, and carrying 71,000 vehicles a day. How did routine inspections, a noted three-inch gash, and a pilot car on a cellphone all align to make a bridge fail in seconds? In this episode, we walk through the sequence of events, the design limits of a through-truss bridge, and the human and regulatory gaps that left an inner lane with 17 feet of clearance unused. Could a single missed radio call and two extra inches on a truck be enough to topple a span? Person: Professor Charles Roeder Date: May 23, 2013 Location: Interstate 5 between Mount Vernon and Burlington, Washington Event: Bridge span collapse into the Skagit River Traffic: 71,000 vehicles per day - Bridge originally built in 1955 and classified as a fracture-critical through-truss design. - Clearance: outer lanes 14 feet 7 inches, inner lanes approximately 17 feet. - Permitted load height: 15 feet 9 inches; measured actual load height: 15 feet 11 inches (2 inches over permit). - Recorded damage history: impacts documented back to 1979, including a three-inch gash noted after an October 22, 2012 strike. - Three people entered the river on the night of the collapse and all three were rescued alive.

Flag Still Flying: The Towboat That Blew Herself Apart at Memphis The Confederate flag flew as the towboat went down - a steam vessel built in 1847, 161 feet 10 inches long, and still flying her colors when a boiler explosion scalded 14 men on June 6, 1862. How did a commercial towboat, converted with cotton bales for armor and carrying only two cannons across eight ships, end up blowing herself apart while her guns pointed forward? In this episode, we tell the story of the steamer Ocean turned CSS General Beauregard, tracing her construction, conversion, and final actions at Plum Point and the First Battle of Memphis to ask: could a slow, lightly armed towboat ever be made into an effective warship? Person: Captain James Hurt Date: June 6, 1862 Location: Memphis, Mississippi River Event: Boiler explosion and sinking at the First Battle of Memphis Period: Built 1847, converted April 5, 1862 - Built in 1847 at Algiers, Louisiana, with dimensions 161 feet 10 inches length, 30 feet beam, 10 feet draft - Registered tonnage recorded as 454 tons and fitted with two funnels - Converted to CSS General Beauregard and completed conversion on April 5, 1862 - Part of an eight-ship River Defense Fleet that carried a total of two cannons between them - Boiler explosion on June 6, 1862, resulted in 14 men scalded and the vessel sinking with her Confederate flag still flying

| Core | 1997 | No | The thought of over a thousand tons of unexploded American bombs rusting in the Thames Estuary is at once absurd and terrifying - the masts of the SS Richard Montgomery still break the surface at low tide while its cargo sits in salt water in 2026; who is legally responsible for that ticking wreck? Could one medieval office, created under Edward II, really be in charge of every ounce of it? In this episode, we follow the line of authority from a fourteenth-century office to a modern civil servant as the story explains what the Receiver of Wreck does, why royal fish matter to the same desk, and how centuries of law shape one unresolved hazard in British waters; how did those legal categories and a single national post end up guarding a ship loaded with explosives? Person: Stephen White Event: Sinking of SS Richard Montgomery Date: 20 August 1944 Law: Merchant Shipping Act 1995 Category: flotsam, jetsam, lagan, derelict - The SS Richard Montgomery sank in the Thames Estuary on 20 August 1944 carrying thousands of tons of ammunition. - More than one thousand tons of unexploded ordnance remain in the ship's hold as of 2026. - The Receiver of Wreck office dates to the reign of Edward II in the early fourteenth century. - The Merchant Shipping Act of 1894 consolidated maritime law; the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 is currently operative. - In 1993 wreck reporting duties were unified into a single national post based in Southampton.

Fifty-eight men sailed into the North Atlantic that winter. One came back Cold, wind-driven ice silently tipped working trawlers until buoyancy failed: fifty-eight men died and one survivor, Harry Eddom, washed ashore in a liferaft on 6 February 1968 after sharing it with two men who were already dead. How did a mayday go unpassed, liferafts float by for weeks, and three ships from Hull disappear in a single month? In this episode, we tell the sequence of events that led from normal departures out of Hull to the Triple Trawler Disaster, outlining the missed mayday, the ignored liferaft, and the timing of sinkings that left families waiting for answers. What chain of failures allowed three trawlers to be lost in twenty-six days? Person: Harry Eddom Event: Hull Triple Trawler Disaster Date: 6 February 1968 (Eddom washed ashore); mayday heard 11 January 1968; liferaft found 13 January 1968; Kingston Peridot last contact 26 January 1968; liferaft traced 29 January 1968 Location: North Atlantic, north of Iceland Ships: Ross Cleveland, St. Romanus, Kingston Peridot - Fifty-eight men died across three ships over a span of twenty-six days. - Harry Eddom was the sole survivor and was found on 6 February 1968 inside a liferaft on an Icelandic beach. - A mayday from the St. Romanus was heard on 11 January 1968 by another vessel but was not passed on. - An empty liferaft marked like the St. Romanus was found floating on 13 January 1968 and no search was launched. - The Kingston Peridot reported ice accumulation on 26 January 1968 and a liferaft traced to it washed ashore on 29 January 1968.

Propeller Embedded in a Cliff: The Night the Regulus Vanished A propeller was found hammered into solid rock high above the water after the SS Regulus disappeared - the ship had survived an iceberg in 1907 and a head-on collision in July 1910 yet was lost off Newfoundland on October 23, 1910; how did a tow in a gale, begun after an unexplained two-hour delay, end with a wreck that returned nothing? What exactly happened in those lost hours that night? In this episode, we tell the sequence of events from the Regulus’s construction to her final voyage, describing the decisions made aboard the John Green and the evidence recovered afterward, and we return repeatedly to the central unresolved question of why the crew chose to tow at night rather than take safer options. Person: A. Harvey and Company Date: October 23, 1910 Location: Off Newfoundland coast, anchored off Shoal Bay Event: Tow began around 1:00 a.m.; hawser snapped around 2:30 a.m. Period: Built October 26, 1878 - The Regulus was built October 26, 1878 at Tyne Iron Shipbuilding yard in Willington Quay. - She struck an iceberg in 1907 and sustained severe damage requiring substantial repairs. - On July 15, 1910 the Regulus and SS Karema collided head-on 25 miles southeast of Nantucket; both were badly damaged but survived. - On October 22, 1910 the tail shaft broke and the Regulus anchored off Shoal Bay; two tugs were dispatched from St. John’s. - The tow began around 1:00 a.m. on October 23, 1910 after the anchor was weighed by hand, losing between one and two hours; the hawser snapped around 2:30 a.m. as the Regulus drifted toward the coast.

Night Rails of Fire: How an Overloaded Train Erased Duffy Street The quiet of a May night turned into a street erased: seven houses gone, six locomotives and dozens of hopper cars piled where front yards had been, and two boys never found alive. The train’s true weight was later reconstructed at approximately 8,900 tons-nearly 3,000 tons heavier than the crew believed-and only two of six locomotives had fully functional dynamic brakes; how did a freight that heavy roll through a community like that without anyone realizing the danger? In this episode, we lay out the timeline, the crew assignments, and the mechanical failures that converged on Duffy Street in San Bernardino on May 12, 1989, and ask how a TOPS printout, a misentered car weight, and multiple inoperative brakes combined to produce a catastrophe the neighborhood could not survive. Person: Frank Holland Person: Everett Crown Person: Allan Riess Date: May 12, 1989 Location: Duffy Street, San Bernardino, California - Train manifest listed 69 hopper cars and a total weight of 6,151 tons on the TOPS printout. - Actual reconstructed train weight by the NTSB was approximately 8,900 tons. - A clerk entered car weight using 60 tons per car for trona instead of about 100 tons per car. - Only 2 of the 6 locomotives had fully functional dynamic brakes (lead SP 8278 and rear helper SP 7443). - Four of the six locomotives had braking problems, including one unit dead-in-tow and others with limited or zero dynamic braking.

They Told Them It Was Just A Fire - 29 Women Killed in Explosion They believed it was a manageable fire and stood outside watching the building burn - until a pressure wave hurled bodies 400 feet and rattled windows 11 miles away. The Army had reclassified the material as Class Seven explosives 14 weeks earlier, but that order never reached the plant; how did five tons of processed magnesium and 56,322 tripflares become a bomb without anyone knowing? In this episode, you’ll hear the sequence of events on a February Wednesday when Building M-132 vanished, the safety gaps at a remote Thiokol Chemical plant, and the aftermath for the families who survived - could a single missed memo explain 29 deaths? Person: 29 workers (mostly Black women) Date: February 3, 1971 Location: Thiokol Chemical complex, Camden County, Georgia Event: Explosion/Detonation at Building M-132 Material: nearly 5 tons processed magnesium and 56,322 tripflares - The pressure wave was felt 50 miles away and threw human bodies up to 400 feet. - Windows were rattled 11 miles from the site by the blast. - The Army reclassified the material as Class Seven on October 29, 1970, 14 weeks before the explosion. - Building M-132 held nearly five tons of processed magnesium plus 56,322 assembled tripflares on the morning of the blast. - Thirty-nine minutes? No - 3 to 4 minutes elapsed between the initial fire and full evacuation; everyone was outside when the building detonated.

When Sugar Became Fuel: The Night Port Wentworth Exploded The sweet, familiar smell in a sugar refinery turned into an unstoppable weapon that tore through a plant in minutes and burned for seven days; investigators later noted the industry had known about dust explosions since 1926 - an 82-year warning left unheeded. Who chose not to act, and why did that decision cost lives in the dark tunnels beneath the silos? In this episode, we tell the story of the Dixie Crystal refinery on the night of February 7, 2008, describing the plant, the people working there, the sequence of the blast and the chaotic response - and we return to the central question of responsibility that survived the demolition of the silos. Person: Lawrence Manker Jr. Person: Malcolm Frazier Date: February 7, 2008 Location: Port Wentworth, Georgia Event: Explosion and seven-day fire at Dixie Crystal/Imperial Sugar refinery - 112 people were working the shift inside the refinery when the blast hit at 7:00 PM. - The refinery had been processing enough sugar to cover roughly 9% of the U.S. supply by fiscal year ending September 30, 2007 (14.5 million hundredweight). - The sugar industry had known about dust explosion risks since 1926 - 82 years before the 2008 blast. - Roughly 12% of the refinery was demolished in seconds by the chain of secondary explosions. - Forty workers reported they had never received evacuation training and only five recalled ever participating in a fire drill.

Minutes to Obliteration: The Pier That Turned Brooklyn Inside Out A routine welding spark on Pier Thirty-Five turned into potentially the largest explosion in New York City history: thirty-seven thousand pounds of detonating cord, twenty-six minutes from ignition to detonation, ten dead and 274 injured. How could a man standing roughly one thousand feet from the waterfront be killed while firefighters at the blast edge were left unharmed? In this episode, we lay out the sequence of events on December 3, 1956 at Bush Terminal: the materials on the pier, the maintenance work with an oxyacetylene torch, and the physical evidence that explains the blast - and the question of why distance and placement mattered in fatal ways. Person: Irving T. Bush Location: Bush Terminal, Sunset Park, Brooklyn Date: December 3, 1956 Event: Pier Thirty-Five explosion Casualties: 10 dead; 274 injured - The complex covered roughly 200 acres with 43 miles of internal railroad track by 1928. - Norton Lilly and Company had operated inside the terminal since 1902 and had been there 55 years by 1956. - More than 25,000 workers were employed inside the terminal on the December afternoon of the explosion. - Pier Thirty-Five had over 26,000 pounds of ground foam rubber scrap on its surface and an additional 11,000 pounds spilling from broken burlap bags. - Approximately 37,000 pounds of Cordeau Detonant Fuse were staged somewhere in the cargo on the pier.