Word: benzol
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Between 6:00 and 6:15 that dreadful roar echoed the entire length of the upper Rhine, and had been heard in five countries: Germany, France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Switzerland. It marked the death of 62 people, injury to over 1,000, total destruction of a gas tank, iron works, benzol plant, all belonging to the Neunkirchen Iron Works, and most of the industrial section of Neunkirchen, a manufacturing city of 40,000 souls in the Saar Valley...
First explosion occurred in one of the great tar reservoirs adjoining the benzol factory. Alarm whistles sounded instantly. While fountains of blazing tar shot into the air, a rescue squad hurried toward the plant. Not one lived to reach it. Some of the burning tar fell on a gas tank 270 feet high, 150 feet in diameter. Houses crumpled like cards. Like a vast clay pigeon the top of the tank skimmed over the city and crashed on the railway tracks 2,500 feet away. Parts of a freight train were picked up seven miles away. There...