From The Titusville Morning Herald of June 17, 1866, "Our attention has been called to a series of experiments that have been made in the wells of various localities by Col. Roberts, with his newly patented torpedo. ... The torpedo... is lowered into the well, down to the spot, as near as can be ascertained, where it is necessary to explode it. ... The object of the torpedo is to clean out all the deposits at the bottom of the well."
In the western Pennsylvania oilfields of the second half of the 1800s, "shooters" were men who set off nitroglycerin charges in wells to get the oil flowing again. Tales of Destruction relates stories and legends of this absurdly hazardous job. Additional notes here, in Samuel Pees's Oil History. (Previously)
posted by tss on Nov 5, 2009 - 4 comments

From Sheffield, England to Yongbyon, North Korea, nuclear plant cooling towers are coming down! And pretty much without a hitch. Things didn't go quite so well, though, for an old flour factory in Turkey, which just rolled over onto its roof. D'oh!
posted by flapjax at midnite on Aug 1, 2009 - 34 comments

17 years ago, On Wednesday, April 22, 1992, the 461-year old city of Guadalajara, Mexico, experienced a series of ten massive explosions occurring in the heart of the downtown Reforma district. The blasts measured 7.1 and 7.0 on the Richter scale at the University of Mexico in Mexico City some 200 miles away. The disastrous series of sewer gasoline explosions in Guadalajara, though not caused by a terrorist attack, demonstrate the potential impact of a well-planned and executed terrorist attack using a city’s sewer lines. At least 200 people where killed. [more inside]
posted by dirty lies on Apr 22, 2009 - 15 comments

KaBOOM! This past Friday, the MythBusters exploded 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate (25% of the same material used in the Oklahoma City bombing,) at a rock quarry in Yolo County, CA for an upcoming episode. But the explosion was apparently a wee bit bigger than they expected. It shattered windows in nearby Esparto and was large enough to be picked up as a "small event" ground tremor by National Geographical Survey sensors. Which myth were they busting, you ask? [more inside]
posted by zarq on Mar 26, 2009 - 73 comments

Got some dry ice? Got a swimming pool? Well, what are you waiting for? Inquisitive dogs will be confused! Start with a small chunk. Next, take a 60-pound block of dry ice and kick it into the jacuzzi. Okay, so you're looking for more of a thrill? Try a dry ice depth charge! (If you don't have a pool, a frozen lake will do.)
posted by not_on_display on Feb 23, 2009 - 68 comments

Atomic and nuclear explosions. [more inside]
posted by swift on Oct 15, 2008 - 77 comments

Something exploded over and under Lake Huron near the US/Canadian border on July 31, 2008. Nobody knows what it was. Initial published reports identified the cause as a meteor shower (without attribution). A week later more details emerged and meteors were ruled out. So what was it? [more inside]
posted by maxpower on Aug 14, 2008 - 52 comments

A large series of explosions erupted this morning from a welding chemical storage facility in North York (a suburb of Toronto) at approximately 4am EST. The highway 401, North America's busiest, has been closed in sections, and thousands of local residents are still being evacuated, with several of them injured. Police and fire officials are currently not sure of the possibility of further explosions and are taking precautionary measures. The whole situation has produced some apocalyptic-looking pictures.
posted by tehloki on Aug 10, 2008 - 39 comments

The Tunguska Event. A century ago, something exploded over Russia... [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Jul 1, 2008 - 22 comments

Searching for animatronics that'll take you out and do you right? Long beyond their glory days, renowned Showbiz Pizza house band, The Rock-afire Explosion, is attempting a comeback. Not that they haven't tried before, but this reunion is driven on multiple fronts: the refocussed creator Aaron Fletcher, the head (and tail) of Creative Engineering; accomplished custom performances by Chris Thrash (previously on Metafilter) and his fellow fan programmer/collectors; and a cameo in the technicolor orgy of an MGMT music video. (Noticed on the fittingly titled Gorilla vs. Bear.) [more inside]
posted by pokermonk on Jun 7, 2008 - 27 comments

Feel good hit of the year; Discovery Channel's 'I Love the Whole World' ad [more inside]
posted by oxford blue on Apr 19, 2008 - 103 comments

Controlled Safety Test Fireworks Videos : 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
posted by Dave Faris on Mar 20, 2008 - 35 comments

A rather interesting post WW II video of metallic sodium being disposed of in a lake. You might have seen this on a small scale back in high school chemistry class when the teacher put a tiny sliver of sodium in a bowl of water.
posted by polysigma on Nov 1, 2007 - 47 comments

The first Grand Theft Auto.
posted by potch on Oct 9, 2007 - 28 comments

A bunch of natural gas canisters blew up near downtown Dallas today. Eyewitness video!
posted by punkfloyd on Jul 25, 2007 - 94 comments

The Nedelin disaster remains the most fatal catastrophe in the history of rocketry. On October 26, 1960 an R-16 ICBM designed by Mikhail Yangel accidentally ignited killing over 100 within moments. The incident remained in strict secrecy for thirty years until it was unearthed by James Oberg. The true casualty rate remains a mystery and Kazakhstan still sees more than its fair share of rocket mishaps.
posted by Alison on Aug 31, 2006 - 16 comments

200 liters of condensed liquid nitrogen (LN₂) were delivered to Berkeley’s Condensed Matter Lab this past Monday. Sent to retrieve the 400lb dewar from the loading dock but faced with a non-working elevator, an enterprising young lab student decided to carry it down the stairs. Gravity is a harsh mistress.

If things had turned out differently, they could have been scraping his remains off the walls with a spatula. At Texas A&M in January a lab was badly damaged when someone ignored the Ideal Gas Law, removed the pressure valve and rupture disk off an old (LN₂) tank and filled the remaining holes with metal plugs. "How to Tell a True Lab Story" talks about a similar incident. LN₂ is good for more than just blowing up a school (or, um a watermelon), though: Spanish Chef Ferran Adrià uses it to create dishes at his restaurant. Previously on MeFI: How to make LN₂ ice cream (careful!) and unwise science experiments.
posted by zarq on Aug 18, 2006 - 27 comments

A splash of urban colour! A dilapidated tower block in Glasgow was the setting for a riotous splash of colour this week as Sony followed up their previous Bravia tv campaign of the bouncing balls down the streets of San Francisco with a new advert using a disused towerblock in Glasgow. Some beautiful urban explosion pics here, here, here, here and here.
posted by ClanvidHorse on Jul 26, 2006 - 20 comments

The Day Las Vegas Shook What were you doing at 11:45am on May 4, 1988? If you were a resident of southern Nevada, you'd remember. That was the day rocket fuel factory PEPCON was wiped off the map in a series of 7 explosions, two of which measured 3.0 and 3.5 on the Richter scale. The explosions sent shockwaves across the valley, taking with it marshmellow cream from the marshmellow factory next door, denting garage doors miles away, and shattering damn near every window in Henderson. As the valley's 500,000 residents stood outside wondering what caused the explosion and the massive plume of smoke, many speculated the Russians had inexplicably attacked Henderson. Miraculously, only two people died. PEPCON never operated another day in Nevada and moved to Utah.
posted by b_thinky on Mar 4, 2006 - 37 comments

Huge explosion rocks UK countryside. Police say the oil depot explosion appears to be an accident, even though Al-Qaeda called for attacks on the oil industry just a few days ago. (As usual, the media feels the need to report this, even though Al-Qaeda was speaking of Gulf oil targets, and nothing of this scale could have been implented in just a few days)
Some pictures: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
posted by empath on Dec 11, 2005 - 64 comments

"A car riged [sic] with a VBIED [vehicle-borne improvised explosive device] blows up on bridge in Hit, Iraq." (Caution: contains audio with profanity.)
posted by crunchland on Nov 9, 2005 - 40 comments

NEGADON!! "NEGADON - the Monster from Mars" is a "digital monster film", a film for the future. Similar in execution to the short film which eventually spawned "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow", Negadon is a 100% computer-generated short which has been cleverly designed to look like the old Japanese man-in-the-rubber-suit monster movies of the 50's. Even the posters look the part.
posted by 40 Watt on Oct 11, 2005 - 19 comments

Police evacuate Birmingham centre
West Midlands police have evacuated the second largest city in England tonight as a precautionary measure. Sky News are reporting that a series of controlled explosions (I heard on Sky News TV that one of these was on a bus, but this may be innacurate) have been carried out in the Broad Street area. I hope that any and all UK MeFi-ites in Birmingham are keeping sane through out all this.
posted by tomcosgrave on Jul 9, 2005 - 61 comments

Electric power transmission and distribution explosions and fireworks for your Fourth of July weekend.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim on Jul 2, 2005 - 6 comments

NASA scientists say that a large gamma ray explosion within our own galaxy may have triggered a mass extinction hundreds of millions of years ago.
posted by C17H19NO3 on Apr 13, 2005 - 25 comments

texas city timewarp... ... and my friend charley lou rattled in her bayou vista home 5 short miles away.
posted by oigocosas on Mar 23, 2005 - 19 comments

1917: The largest man-made non-nuclear explosion in history and yet (outside of Canada) a largely unknown disaster - The Halifax Explosion. [more inside]
posted by spock on Mar 21, 2005 - 43 comments

Iran and Syria to form an alliance? Yeah, I know it's just been touched upon, but considering the specter of this (whether it is or is not ominous)....
posted by malaprohibita on Feb 16, 2005 - 27 comments

IF jetplane + wall == dust THEN wow(windowsmedia)
Hunt the Boeing my arse.
posted by Pretty_Generic on Sep 27, 2004 - 41 comments

CNN reports that Jakarta has been bombed. Here's the explosion cloud rising. Here's a shot of Plaza 89 after the explosion, and here's another from a different perspective. Has flickr beaten textamerica in the race to beat CNN? Are ma_girl and fauzanazmi so different that they must use moblog services to suit their personalities or is it something else? How much specialization and differentation can we expect in the moblog arena? Will there be moblog streams of current events like this bombing in Jakarta? Will tagging suffice for such a task? Or is this just another terrorist bombing in Jakarta, I'm up late, and found a photo from a bombing before the story even broke on any of the major news sites? Ennui.
posted by filchyboy on Sep 9, 2004 - 52 comments

Pre- and post- explosion satellite images of the Ryongchon train station in North Korea.
posted by PenDevil on Apr 30, 2004 - 37 comments

What do you get when you give university students 48 hours to complete a short film that must included a briefcase, the phrase "Where did I put that remote control" and has to be a musical? 'Detonate'. (Click the 'detonate' link in the features section, movie plays in a pop up)
posted by Be'lal on Mar 2, 2004 - 6 comments

Whale explodes in Taiwan city "A 60-ton sperm whale exploded on a busy street, showering nearby cars and shops with blood and organs and stopping traffic for hours." More Pictures linked here. More exploding whales - 1, 2, 3.
posted by y6y6y6 on Jan 29, 2004 - 29 comments

This truck garage across the train-tracks from our studio in Chicago just blew up (an hour or so ago) and our able intern Anthony has posted some footage of the blaze and 2 very brave guys in a cherry-picker. Scary.
posted by coudal on May 7, 2003 - 28 comments

BLUEDANIEL: DJ, jazz drummer, animator, and Blair Witch website designer Dan Karcher's webpage, a true gem, is particularly timely right now. Great site design, great Flash/MX, great music. (More inside.)
posted by Shane on Feb 26, 2003 - 22 comments

Staten Island oil and gas facility on fire...
The BBC reports that a massive explosion has struck an oil and gas facility on Staten Island, on the outskirts of New York City.
posted by tomcosgrave on Feb 21, 2003 - 31 comments

omg we're all going to die, which means the hurricanes, the war against terrorism, high school free speech... it's all a big nothing!
posted by jcterminal on Oct 2, 2002 - 46 comments

Van Explodes In Northwest Parking Lot Breaking news - not sure if this is just a sad accident, or ... A friend who works in the area said that the place is swarming with cops, and FBI guys. Has anyone else heard anything? Nothing on any of the majors yet. Could be because this will turn out to be minor.
posted by Corky on Jul 12, 2002 - 41 comments

L.A. building Rocked By Explosion A large residential building was rocked by an explosion and erupted in flames Friday. There was no immediate word on whether anyone was hurt. The blast hit the building in the Encino area of the San Fernando Valley about 11 a.m., Fire Department spokesman Bob Collis said.
posted by GernBlandston on May 24, 2002 - 36 comments

Explosion Rocks Manhattan Building NEW YORK -- More than 100 firefighters were called to the scene of a possible collapse Thursday at a building housing a technical school in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. Fire officials said it appeared some type of explosion collapsed some floors of the building. They said 21 people were being treated at the scene for injuries. West 19th Street is closed between Sixth and Seventh Avenues.
From The Scene real Player Video
posted by Blake on Apr 25, 2002 - 46 comments

Sometimes the really important news takes a while to get here. The Otago Daily Times in New Zealand reports on a sewage truck explosion: "A 50m trail of effluent" running down the road, a very dumbfounded driver, Lorraine Isaacs windshield hit by a flying sluice valve. Let the potty jokes begin.
posted by readymade on Apr 16, 2002 - 4 comments

At least 17 killed, hundreds injured, in France. Today, Toulouse was brought to a standstill, as a chemical explosion rocked the town. Initially thought, by many in the area, to be linked to the recent NY attacks, but thankfully not. (Or see the BBC version with more pics)
posted by wackybrit on Sep 21, 2001 - 3 comments

I'm surprised that none of us thought to post this: January 28 was the 15th anniversary of the Challenger explosion. For most of us Generation Xers, that day was the ultimate "where were you?" event, a moment as defining to our generation as the JFK assassination was to Boomers. Or at least that's what the media wants us to believe. In any case, it affected most people very strongly, and threw a hell of a monkey wrench into the US space program that we're arguably still recovering from. Worse, the shuttle's almost guaranteed to blow up again at some point, due to design problems and the inherent risks of space flight. So where were you on that day? How did it affect you? Do you think the nation was permanently affected?
posted by aaron on Jan 30, 2001 - 65 comments