Photos from the Great Boston Molasses Flood (January 15th,1919):Firehouse 31, ripped from itsfoundat

Photos from the Great Boston Molasses Flood (January 15th,1919):Firehouse 31, ripped from itsfoundations by the flood.A man surveys the damage causedby the molasses flood.Rescue workers, knee-deep inmolasses, struggle to free trapped victims.A welder works to cut the tank insearch of bodies.The Red Cross, firefighters, andArmy and Navy personnel rush to the scene.A worker uses an acetylene torchto cut through a section of the ruptured tank.Debris strewn beneath theelevated railway tracks.At about 12:30pm, a massive holding tank owned by the PurityDistilling Company burst open in the north end of Boston.  A wave ofmolasses – 2.3 million gallons in volume and weighing 26 millionpounds – rolled down Commercial Street at 35 miles (56km) per hour. It killed 21 people, injured 50 more, destroyed houses, knocked afirehouse off its foundations, and warped the girders of the AtlanticAvenue Elevated train tracks.The molasses had been shipped from Puerto Rico two days earlier,where the temperature was warmer.  It was winter in Boston, and themolasses hadn’t had time to completely cool down.  So when the tankburst, the warm molasses flowed out far more quickly than if they hadbeen at a normal temperature.However, when they hit the cold air, the molasses cooled veryquickly, and became thick and sticky.  This slowed it down, but thosewho were already trapped in the wreckage were now at risk fromsuffocating or drowning.  The molasses was now four or more times asviscous as before.  According to the Boston Post:Molasses, waist deep, covered the street and swirled and bubbledabout the wreckage…Here and there struggled a form—whether it wasanimal or human being was impossible to tell.  Only an upheaval, athrashing about in the sticky mass, showed where any lifewas…Horses died like so many flies on sticky fly-paper.  The morethey struggled, the deeper in the mess they were ensnared.  Humanbeings—men and women—suffered likewise.At first, an anarchist terror attack was blamed for the disaster. But it soon became apparent that the distilling company wasresponsible.  The holding tank was 50% too thin to hold such a volumeof molasses, and had never been properly inspected.  The company hadeven changed the colour from blue to brown-red to cover up leaks. After a three-year trial, the Purity Distilling Company was foundliable for the disaster. -- source link

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