Cali explosion in 1956

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The catastrophic explosion of Cali occurred on 7. August 1956 in the Colombian city of Cali in the department of Valle del Cauca .

caused

A total of 1053 boxes with 42 tons of gelatinous explosives , which were intended for road construction and had been unloaded from a Swedish ship in the port of Buenaventura the day before , were loaded onto seven trucks of the Colombian armydelivered to the city. In the evening, the boxes were deposited in the immediate vicinity of an old train station just outside the city. The explosion occurred there at 01:07 a.m. the following day. Large parts of what was then downtown Cali - the city had around 120,000 inhabitants in the mid-1950s (today there are 2.4 million) - were destroyed in the process. Around 1,300 people are believed to have died; the priest Hurtado spoke of 3725 dead he had seen in a mass grave. Between 1200 and 12,000 people are said to have been injured.

The cause of the accident could never be determined. It was later suspected either that the explosives had overheated or that a bullet was accidentally fired when a soldier was unlocking a pistol.

The explosion tore a hole 50 meters wide and eight meters deep. It was the worst unnatural disaster in the history of Colombia and all of South America .

Padre Alfonso Hurtado Galvis (1924 to 2014), one of the most important witnesses of the disaster, in front of a makeshift memorial cross.

background

In the mid-1950s, construction projects relating to the Panamericana were pushed ahead in Colombia , especially in the coastal departments of Chocó and Valle del Cauca . The explosives required for this were either manufactured in the country or imported via Venezuela or the Pacific ports and then transported to the construction projects inland. However, these journeys on the roads of the Andes made great demands on drivers and vehicles. In addition, Colombia, under the junta of Gustavo Rojas Pinilla since 1953 and since the late 1940s , found itself in a simmering civil war situation (see La Violencia ). Against this background, the transport of explosives was almost always carried out or secured by the military.

prehistory

The explosives intended for road construction, a total of around 110 tons of blasting gelatine , a dynamite explosive consisting of glycerine trinitrate and collodion wool, was landed on the morning of August 6, 1956 in the port of Buenaventura on board a Swedish ship and loaded there onto 20 trucks of the Colombian army . The goals of the convoy, which was initially to take the route via Cali , around 80 kilometers away , were construction sites near Palmira and Bogotá . The drive over the mountain roads took almost four and a half hours.

The 20 trucks arrived in Cali at 5:30 p.m. in the afternoon. There the vehicles were initially parked on the grounds of the Pichincha military base ( Cantón Militar Pichincha ) in the south of the city; 13 of them immediately continued their journey in the direction of Palmira and on a bypass road. However, the seven remaining trucks, which had originally been ordered to Bogotá , were forbidden to continue their journey by the commandant of the base, Capitán Gustavo Camargo, most likely for safety reasons. Perhaps the drivers were also seen as overtired; Overheating of the trucks' engines could also have been the cause. It is also sometimes reported that the onward journey across the city was viewed as too dangerous because of a fireworks display on the national holiday (Colombia recognized on August 7, 1819).

These seven trucks, which still had 1,053 boxes loaded with a total of around 42 tons of explosive gelatine , were finally transported in the late afternoon, around 5:30 p.m., north of the Pacific marshalling yard ( Ferrocarril del Pacifico ), about halfway between the train station and today's expressway 1 ( Carrera 1 ) or along the crossroad 25 ( Calle 25 ). In the immediate vicinity were the accommodations of the Codazzi Pioneer Battalion , which had driven the road construction between Cali and Palmira, as well as the local military police , which is why the location was considered safe.

The catastrophe

In the early morning hours of August 7, at 1:07 a.m. local time , the parked trucks exploded in a chain reaction . The devastating explosion completely destroyed a total of eight apartment blocks and severely damaged three more. A crater 50 meters long and about eight meters deep was torn into the ground at the site of the explosion. The nearby accommodations of the Codazzi battalion and the military police were literally swept away by the blast, killing around 500 soldiers instantly. Body parts were found up to two kilometers away on house roofs and on streets. Within a radius of about ten blocks, all buildings were either completely destroyed or badly damaged. The districts of San Nicolas, El Porvenir, El Hoyo, El Piloto, Fatima and Jorge Isaacs were particularly hard hit by the disaster. The churches of Le Merced and San Paolo were also badly damaged (at this one and a half kilometers away, the heavy bronze doors were thrown off their hinges by the pressure wave).

The bang of the explosion could still be heard over 50 kilometers away, for example in Buga and Santander de Quilichao . The earthquake monitoring station of the national geographic institute in Bogotá and the USGS registered a deviation on the Richter scale of 4.3.

Immediate consequences

After the explosion, entire streets were on fire. According to eyewitness reports, a huge mushroom-shaped cloud, similar to a nuclear weapon explosion , is said to have formed over the site of the disaster . At first there was complete confusion. Initial reports of the accident were broadcast on the radio at 4:50 a.m. The military chief of the Department of Valle del Cauca, General de Brigada Alberto Gómez, personally took over command of the disaster relief that night, which was initially very difficult because only six fire engines were available in the entire city and requested reinforcements from the surrounding area . The extinguishing work dragged on for almost three days. The municipal university hospital ( Hospital Universitario del Valle ) was completely overwhelmed with the numerous injuries, especially the fire victims, which is why numerous injured were brought to the hospitals in Tuluá , Palmira and Buga on the following days .

The victims

The exact number of victims is not known. Officials cite around 1,300 fatalities, including 500 soldiers and military police. However, numbers of up to 4,000 deaths have also been postulated, although this is probably due to a misunderstanding. Alfonso Hurtado Galvis (1924-2014), a former lawyer and since 1950 Padre of the Santa Marta Church, one of the best-known eyewitnesses of the disaster, declared that he had seen graves in which over 3,700 unidentifiable skulls and body parts had been buried. This probably meant that the number of dead was equated with the number of buried parts and was accordingly estimated to be higher.

There is much greater uncertainty about the number of injured. Some sources name up to 12,000 injured, but this number cannot be verified. It is possible, however, that there is a false representation here as well: It is also reported that only 1,200 injured people are said to have been brought to the surrounding hospitals. In total, there were around 5,000 families in Cali with fatalities or injuries, which could possibly support the numbers of 1,300 dead and (at least) 1,200 wounded.

The residential complex Residencial República de Venezuela , the construction of which was donated by Venezuela to accommodate the homeless (picture from 2013).

Reactions from abroad

In the days and weeks after the catastrophe, and also after the extent of the accident had gradually become known, first expressions of condolences were made - for example from Pope Pius XII. - and later donations, for example from the USA , the Soviet Union , the EVG states , from Mexico and Japan as well as from neighboring countries. For example, Venezuela , at the time under the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez , donated a multi-storey prefabricated residential complex ( Residencial República de Venezuela ) to accommodate people who had become homeless as a result of the explosion.

causes

The exact cause of the accident could never be clarified. Speculations ranged from a shot that could have accidentally come loose from the gun of one of the guards on the truck, to a carelessly thrown away cigarette or the possibly overheated engines of the trucks (although here it would be questionable whether these circumstances even had the explosive gelatin can ignite). The dictator of Colombia, General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla , also suspected that rebel groups might have carried out an attack, but no evidence of an intentional act could be found.

The cali disaster is still the worst unnatural disaster in the history of Colombia and - next to the San Juanico disaster of 1984 (in Mexico) - one of the most casualties of its kind in Central and South America in the 20th century .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ La tragedia por la explosión que dejó cerca de 3,000 muertos en Cali, 60 años después eltiempo.com.co, accessed on June 24, 2017 (Spanish)
  2. ↑ 50 años de la tragedia que estremeció a Cali eltiempo.com, accessed on June 4, 2017 (Spanish)
  3. ↑ Note: There are deviations in the sources. Sometimes there is only talk of ten or twelve trucks that are supposed to have continued the journey
  4. ↑ 50 años de la tragedia que estremeció a Cali eltiempo.com, accessed on June 4, 2017 (Spanish)
  5. ↑ La explosión de Cali: Agosto 7 de 1956 banrepcultural.org, accessed June 4, 2017 (Spanish)
  6. ↑ Note: Some sources speak of a 25-meter-deep crater, while images show a 25- foot (approx. Eight-meter) deep crater. Presumably, feet and meters were mixed up here and one source copied from the other.
  7. ↑ Mysterious explosions in Colombia history.com, accessed June 4, 2017
  8. ↑ Note: These representations, especially by Padre Alfonso Hurtado Galvis, who was in the affected districts, probably refer to the observations made the following day and during the fires. It should be remembered that the explosion happened in the middle of the night and the visibility was often only ten meters because of the smoke development, at least according to the fire department. A close observation of the mushroom cloud at night would have been at least very difficult.
  9. ↑ 50 años de la tragedia que estremeció a Cali eltiempo.com, accessed on June 4, 2017 (Spanish)
  10. ↑ La explosión de Cali: Agosto 7 de 1956 banrepcultural.org, accessed June 4, 2017 (Spanish)
  11. ↑ 7 de agosto de 1956, el día en que la 'Sucursal del Cielo' fue un infierno caracol.com.co, accessed on June 4, 2017 (Spanish)
  12. ↑ 50 años de la tragedia que estremeció a Cali eltiempo.com, accessed on June 4, 2017 (Spanish)
  13. ↑ Mysterious explosions in Colombia history.com, accessed June 4, 2017

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