`Welcome to the explosive demolition industry’s worldwide source for news and information on building implosions, blowdowns and all other types of structural blasting projects.
Implosionworld.com publishes news, feature articles and non-proprietary technical information. In addition, there’s the award-winning photography captured by Protec Documentation Services as well as many outside contributors. Throughout this website, you’ll find images designed to capture the essence of each unique project, as we work to present an insightful look into the world of explosive demolition with perspective and integrity.’
‘Between July 1945 and November 1962 the United States is known to have conducted 216 atmospheric and underwater nuclear tests. After the Limited Test Ban Treaty between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in 1963, nuclear testing went underground. It became literally invisible – but more frequent: the United States conducted a further 723 underground tests until 1992. 100 SUNS documents the era of visible nuclear testing, the atmospheric era, with 100 photographs drawn by Michael Light from the archives at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the U.S. National Archives in Maryland. It includes previously classified material from the clandestine Lookout Mountain Air Force Station based in Hollywood, whose film directors, cameramen, and still photographers were sworn to secrecy.’
`An elderly man apparently upset about a parking dispute died in his burning house after trying to set fire to two of his neighbors’ homes using “homemade bombs,” authorities said. [..]
Police received a call about an explosion early Sunday and found the man standing in the street holding two handguns. One of his arm was in flames. When police told him to drop the guns, he fled into his house. Minutes later, flames and smoke came from the home, followed by several explosions, the city said in a statement. [..]
Investigators said the man had a long-standing feud with several neighbors regarding parking on the cul-de-sac. Neighbors said he also had other gripes.
“He was always mad at the whole neighborhood, always screaming at the kids especially,” [a neighbour] said. “He hated everybody. I just never thought it would get to that point.”‘
`Al-Qaeda is recruiting suicide bombers who are infected with the AIDS virus, according to documents revealed to the Sunday Mirror.
Terror chiefs are also targeting fanatics who suffer other lethal blood diseases such as hepatitis and dengue fever in order to increase their “kill rate” from an explosion. The chilling new threat is revealed in papers distributed to British military camps in Iraq and across Europe.
Under the heading “HIV/Hepatitis” the document states: “There is evidence that terrorists might be deliberately recruiting volunteers with diseases that are spread by blood transference.”‘
`With common items such as concrete blocks, a saw blade, bare wires and gasoline, a despondent David Moore devised systems that would first kill him and then turn his home into a funeral pyre.
Neither worked as planned.
On Monday, Belmont police discovered Moore dead in his bedroom, some 20 feet away from a homemade guillotine he had built in his living room. He had gone as far as bolting tracks of metal piping to a ceiling beam to guide the blade, authorities said.
Flawless it was not.’
‘They overclock a cpu over 4ghz, remove the heatsink, and boom! “Theres a hole in the motherboard!”‘
Looks like the hole goes right through the table too.
see it here »
`NASA scientists have observed an explosion on the moon. The blast, equal in energy to about 70 kg of TNT, occurred near the edge of Mare Imbrium (the Sea of Rains) on Nov. 7, 2005, when a 12-centimeter-wide meteoroid slammed into the ground traveling 27 km/s.
“What a surprise,” says Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) researcher Rob Suggs, who recorded the impact’s flash. He and colleague Wes Swift were testing a new telescope and video camera they assembled to monitor the moon for meteor strikes. On their first night out, “we caught one,” says Suggs.’
‘HYDESim maps overpressure radii generated by a ground-level detonation; these radii are an indicator of structural damage to buildings. No other effects, such as thermal damage or fallout levels, are included in this tool. Note that the displayed rings are “idealized”; that is, no account is taken of terrain, urban density, ground type, weather conditions, and so on.’
Kinda cool little application, if you like that sorta thing. I couldn’t sleep particularly well the other night and since I didn’t have much else to do at 5am I used this simulator to roughly calculate how the recent fuel depot explosion in England compared to the atomic weapons dropped on Japan in World War II.
And how did it compare, you ask? Pretty fucken well. :)
`Large explosions have rocked a fuel depot near Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire shooting flames hundreds of feet into the sky.
Police say there are 36 casualties, with two people seriously hurt. [..]
The fire, which police believe was caused by an accident, could last days with more explosions expected. [..]
In total, 20 petrol tanks are involved in the fire, each said to hold three million gallons of fuel.’
`Out of the sun a black, cigar-shaped object falls toward the earth. At the edge of town a filling station attendant sees it cross the slice of sky between the car above him and the edge of his grease pit. The center fielder of the visiting baseball team sees the moving spot, then looks back toward the batter, impatient for the third out. A woman in the park hears a strange, thin whistle and looks up, shading her eyes.
At a point 2,000 feet above the ground, the first atomic rocket of World War III explodes over your city. In one vast flash of light, equal to 100 suns, the buildings are etched against a sky of fire. A blinding ball of flame leaps from the point where the rocket exploded.’
I love this retro nuclear war stuff. It’s great. :) What other official documents would have lines like the following?
`If and when an atom bomb ever does fall near you, you will be scared. There is no doubt about that. If you are normal, you will be plenty scared.’
Lighting jumping jacks on the bare skin of your back will burn you.
I knew this before these Danish fellows decided to make a video to prove it. :)
see it here »
`Water supplies in Harbin , home to more than 3 million people, were cut off last night and will not resume “until further notice”. Schools have been closed whilst many residents are trying to leave the cities because city authorities have warned that pollution is threatening the water supply, which comes from the Songhua River.
An assessment by the Heilongjiang Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau found the river had been contaminated by chemicals released by a massive explosion at the Jilin Petroleum and Chemical Company plant in the city of Jilin on November 13. [..]
The November 13 explosion in the Jilin chemical plant released highly toxic substances, killing at least five people and forcing the evacuation of more than 10,000 nearby residents. It also contaminated the partially frozen Songhua River with benzene and phenyl, which can lead to hepatitis, urinary tract diseases and possibly cancer.’
`With that recall, the Prius joined the ranks of the buggy computer — a club that began in 1945 when engineers found a moth in Panel F, Relay #70 of the Harvard Mark II system.1The computer was running a test of its multiplier and adder when the engineers noticed something was wrong. The moth was trapped, removed and taped into the computer’s logbook with the words: “first actual case of a bug being found.”
Sixty years later, computer bugs are still with us, and show no sign of going extinct. As the line between software and hardware blurs, coding errors are increasingly playing tricks on our daily lives. Bugs don’t just inhabit our operating systems and applications — today they lurk within our cell phones and our pacemakers, our power plants and medical equipment. And now, in our cars.
But which are the worst?’
It’s not every day you see the phrase `largest non-nuclear explosion in the planet’s history’ in a story about computers. :)
`Three enormous explosions, at least one of which was a car bomb, struck this evening near two prominent hotels popular with foreign journalists and contractors, causing heavy structural damage to at least one of the buildings, shattering glass throughout the neighborhood and catapulting debris hundreds of yards away.’
(1.5meg Windows Media)
It looks a lot like the Anarchist’s Cookbook, just with a different title.
Don’t try this at home, kids. :)
`Cumberland County deputies said a man wanted on kidnapping and robbery charges burst into flames Wednesday after gasoline splattered on him and a deputy used a Taser to try to apprehend him.
Deputies said Corporal Bradley Dean pulled over Richard McKinnon for a broken taillight in the Lake Upchurch area of Cumberland County.
McKinnon sped off, drove over a mailbox and hit a tree, deputies said.
He had gasoline in the front seat of his vehicle, and the gasoline splattered on him, they said.’
4000 gallons of styrene in a burning truck. Goes boom. :)
(8.7meg Google video)
see it here »
‘The “suspicious package” that caused Interstate 75 and Daniels Parkway to be shut for more than an hour Monday was not an explosive pipe bomb — but rather wrapped-up plastic foot-long penis.
“Someone took construction-grade plastic, molded it into a penis and wrapped it with duct tape,” said Lee County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Charles Ferrante.
“They wrote ‘Happy Father’s Day’ on the duct tape.”‘
`A 38-year-old suburban man allegedly admitted to police he drank 10 beers before lighting a commercial firework inside his home, blowing up the house and seriously burning himself and a female companion.
“When you see these in public settings, they’re 30, 40, 50 feet across at the top,” Pat Barry, spokesman for the Will County sheriff’s department, said of the firework the man allegedly set off. “Imagine this going off in a room that’s about 8 by 8,” Barry said.’
`A huge explosion at an oil refinery in Texas has killed at least 14 and injured more than 70.
The blast took place at a facility owned by British-owned company BP in Texas City. [..]
Texas City resident Mike Martin described “a real loud explosion, like a sonic boom”.
“It shook the pictures bad enough to where it knocked them off the wall. And it frightened me, so I jumped out of bed.”
Judith Mantell, 62, told the Houston Chronicle the blast lifted her vehicle off the ground at her home five miles (8km) away.’
`Luckily no one was in the garage when the bottle blew.’
‘Scientists warn that Mount St. Helens could erupt within 24 hours, and with more force than previously expected.’
The more force the better, I figure. I’m on the other side of the world, afterall. :) No doubt we’ll get some good webcam pictures.
‘A huge explosion rocked North Korea three days ago but U.S. and South Korean officials said on Sunday it was unlikely to have been a nuclear weapons test despite a report the blast produced a mushroom cloud.
[..] in Washington, U.S. officials said there was no definitive explanation yet, although Thursday’s blast did not appear to be nuclear.’
more here:
‘North Korea is believed to be developing nuclear weapons. International experts would likely have been able to detect a test if one had occurred several days ago.
“We understand that a mushroom-shaped cloud about 3.5 to 4 kilometers (2.1 to 2.5 miles) in diameter was monitored during the explosion,” the source in Seoul told Yonhap.’
followup to Report: Mushroom Cloud Seen After N.Korea Explosion and Reports May Indicate N.Korea Nuclear Test.
‘The Bush administration has received recent intelligence reports that some experts believe could indicate North Korea is preparing to conduct its first nuclear weapons test explosion, [..]’
I wonder if this is related to the previous link.
‘A mushroom cloud up to 2.5 miles in diameter was seen after an explosion in a remote area of North Korea near the border with China, Yonhap news agency reported on Sunday, quoting sources in Beijing.
The South Korean news agency said Thursday’s blast in Kimhyungjik county in Yanggang province appeared to much worse than a train explosion that killed at least 170 people in April.’
`Officials say the trailer park manager had a stove installed in the home, but it wasn’t hooked up properly and was leaking gas. The manager told 24 Hour News 8 that he wanted the woman to stay out until it was fixed. The manager went to go shut the propane tank off, and that’s when the woman lit a cigarette and the trailer exploded.’
`When police raided a house in Teignmouth they found a home-made bomb making factory where Jeremy Britton had constructed six explosive devices.
[..] Britton, who was jailed, was to tell police that they were “little boys’ toys” and that it was like having “a chemistry set”. Britton said he liked war, guns and explosives and he liked the sound of the “boom” when he set off the bombs. He said it was something to do when he was bored and he used to explode the bombs on rubbish dumps.’
`Unstable fuses could cause unsalvaged World War II bombs aboard an abandoned shipwreck in the river Thames, UK, to blow [..]
[..] official estimates of the devastation that the explosion would cause [include] predictions of a three kilometre high column of water, mud, metal and munitions sent into the air by the blast. ‘
also here.
