On 11 May 2004, the ICL Plastics factory, in the Woodside district of Maryhill, Glasgow in western Scotland, exploded. Nine people were killed, including two company directors, and 33 injured, 15 seriously. The four-storey building was largely destroyed.
A mining accident is an accident that occurs during the process of mining minerals or metals. Thousands of miners die from mining accidents each year, especially from underground coal mining, although accidents also occur in hard rock mining. Coal mining is considered much more hazardous than hard rock mining due to flat-lying rock strata, generally incompetent rock, the presence of methane gas, and coal dust. Most of the deaths these days occur in developing countries, and rural parts of developed countries where safety measures are not practiced as fully. A mining disaster is an incident where there are five or more fatalities.
The collapse of the Hotel New World was a civil disaster that occurred in Singapore on 15 March 1986. The Hotel New World was a six-story building situated at the junction of Serangoon Road and Owen Road in the Rochor district when it suddenly collapsed, trapping 50 people beneath the rubble. 33 people died and 17 people were rescued.
A gas explosion is the ignition of a mixture of air and flammable gas, typically from a gas leak. In household accidents, the principal explosive gases are those used for heating or cooking purposes such as natural gas, methane, propane, butane. In industrial explosions many other gases, like hydrogen, as well as evaporated (gaseous) gasoline or ethanol play an important role. Industrial gas explosions can be prevented with the use of intrinsic safety barriers to prevent ignition, or use of alternative energy.
The Thredbo landslide was a catastrophic landslide that occurred at the village and ski resort of Thredbo, New South Wales, Australia, on 30 July 1997. Two ski lodges were destroyed and 18 people died. Stuart Diver was the only survivor.
The Viale Giotto 120 Building collapse was a deadly accident which occurred in Foggia, Italy in the early morning of November 11, 1999. The building was an apartment complex with 26 flats, at the time less than 30 years old. 71 people lived in the building; 67 people were killed.
On the evening of December 27, 1983, firefighters in Buffalo, New York responded to a call regarding a propane gas leak. Shortly after their arrival, the propane ignited, leveling a warehouse and causing a wide swath of damage. Five firefighters and two civilians were killed in the blast, and left dozens more injured. The event remains the largest single day loss of life for the Buffalo Fire Department.
On 4 March 2012, a series of blasts occurred at an army arms dump in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo. At least 300 people were killed by the explosions. Additional bodies were said to be "unfindable." Among the dead were six Chinese workers from a Beijing Construction Engineering Group work site close to the armoury. Interior Minister Raymond Mboulou said that nearby hospitals were overflowing with injuries, with many wounded lying in hallways due to lack of space. Total injuries exceeded 2,500. More than 121,000 people were left homeless and 672 million dollars in damages were done. One survivor described the event as feeling like "the apocalypse;" others described it as "like a tsunami" or "earthquake".
On 31 January 2013 in Mexico City, an explosion caused by a gas leak occurred beneath Building B-2 at the Torre Ejecutiva Pemex, a skyscraper complex that is the headquarters of Pemex, the Mexican state oil company. At least 37 people died and another 121 were injured when an explosion occurred in a building adjacent to the main tower. Earlier in the day, Pemex sent out a tweet saying that the building was being evacuated due to a "problem with the electrical system" in the complex that includes the skyscraper.
On March 12, 2014, an explosion occurred at 9:31 a.m. in the East Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The explosion leveled two apartment buildings located just north of 116th Street at 1644 and 1646 Park Avenue, killing eight people, injuring at least 70 others, and displacing 100 families. City officials initially pointed to a gas leak as the cause of the blast. In June 2015, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) blamed the explosion on failures by Consolidated Edison and the city. The NTSB also agreed to review Whistleblower Gas Explosion Audit Findings from the 2009 Floral Park Queens gas explosion as part of their East Harlem Gas Explosion Investigation. The NTSB were unable to resolve these hazards found with merit by the New York State Public Service Commission (NYSPSC) and they remain a Public Safety Hazard today.
On the afternoon of 18 January 2017, a major avalanche occurred on Gran Sasso d'Italia massif, one of the mountains above Rigopiano, impacting and destroying the four-star Hotel Rigopiano in Farindola, Abruzzo. The impact killed twenty-nine people and injured eleven others, making the avalanche the deadliest in Italy since the White Friday avalanches in 1916, and the deadliest avalanche in Europe since the Galtür avalanche in 1999.
On 31 December 2018, at approximately 6:02 a.m. local time, an apartment block in Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, partially collapsed. The collapse killed 39 people and injured 17 more. The cause of the collapse is believed to have been a gas explosion.
On January 24, 2020, a building at Watson Grinding and Manufacturing in northwest Houston, Texas, United States, exploded at 4:24 a.m. Debris was scattered as far as one-half mile (0.8 km), and approximately 200 nearby houses and businesses were damaged. Officials asked local residents to search for debris and body parts to assist with an investigation into the explosion's cause. An absence of zoning ordinances separating industrial areas from residences is known to prevail in the vicinity of the explosion.
On June 24, 2021, at approximately 1:22 a.m. EDT, Champlain Towers South, a 12-story beachfront condominium in the Miami suburb of Surfside, Florida, United States, partially collapsed, causing the deaths of 98 people. Four people were rescued from the rubble, but one died of injuries shortly after arriving at the hospital. Eleven others were injured. Approximately thirty-five were rescued the same day from the un-collapsed portion of the building, which was demolished ten days later.
On 11 December 2021, an explosion caused the collapse of four buildings in Ravanusa, Italy, killing nine people.
On May 6, 2022, Hotel Saratoga, a luxury hotel in the Old Havana municipality in the city of Havana, Cuba, suffered a suspected gas explosion that damaged large portions of the building as well as surrounding infrastructure. 47 people died and 52 were injured. The hotel was undergoing renovations and there were no guests; however, there were fifty-one workers inside.
On 10 December 2022, an explosion destroyed a block of flats in St Helier, Jersey in the Channel Islands. Ten people were killed in the suspected gas explosion, which occurred just before 4 a.m. GMT.
On May 28, 2023, at approximately 5:00 p.m. CDT, The Davenport, a six-story apartment building in Davenport, Iowa, partially collapsed.
