Tank car explosion at BASF

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The tank car explosion at BASF was an explosion that occurred on July 28, 1948 in Ludwigshafen am Rhein ( Rhineland-Palatinate ) on the premises of the BASF chemical plant . At that time the plant was under compulsory administration by the French occupying forces .

207 people died in the disaster , 3818 were injured and 3122 buildings were seriously affected. The property damage at BASF alone amounted to 80 million  DM , which, adjusted for inflation , corresponds to 207 million euros in today's currency. Since the military government of the French zone of occupation had set the company insurance suspended, yet in 1958 urged the BASF in an administrative lawsuit from the Federal Republic of Germany a compensation of 24 million DM (today 57 million euros).

After the explosion of the Oppau nitrogen plant in 1921 with 561 deaths, the tank car explosion of 1948 is the second largest chemical disaster in Ludwigshafen and at BASF.

procedure

At 3:43 p.m., a tank car filled with about 30 tons of dimethyl ether exploded on the factory premises . The car was parked at 5:45 a.m. and exposed to the summer heat during the day.

Initially, a small amount of gas leaked from a damaged area. This caused a first, smaller explosion that damaged the tank car and caused it to tip over. The car then emptied completely, which caused a large explosion. Their pressure wave led to the release of other chemicals of various kinds on the factory premises, with the formation of clouds of poisonous gas.

Consequences of explosion

More than 200 people were killed, most of them directly from the second, large explosion. Many of the nearly 4,000 injured suffered severe damage from toxic gases released after the incident; many of those affected became blind. The considerable damage to the building was concentrated on the BASF factory premises and its surroundings in the northern half of Ludwigshafen. However, even beyond the Rhine , in Mannheim , there was damage to 2,450 houses, which, however, did not reach the extent of the destruction in the direct vicinity of the explosion site.

Rescue operations

Special stamp: St. Martin
( Michel -Nr. 30)
Special stamp: St. Christophorus
(Michel no. 31)

Around 1,000 firefighters from the area and also French and American occupation soldiers were involved in the rescue work . The helpers searched for survivors for several days, because numerous victims were trapped under steel girders or buried under rubble.

Root cause research and help for victims

The air temperature in the shade was 33 ° C on the day of the accident. The tank car with its gas filling was also exposed to the blazing sun for hours. The investigation report later came to the conclusion that the capacity of the car had been incorrectly calculated with regard to the volume reserve when the gas expanded as a result of heating . In addition, a weak point in a weld seam was suspected, which had given way due to the temperature-related increase in pressure.

In order to be able to support the victims financially, two stamps in Rhineland-Palatinate were issued on October 18, 1948 with a surcharge and the imprint "Aid Agency Ludwigshafen"; the circulation was one million copies each.

literature

  • Occupation damage: Not provided for in the law . In: Der Spiegel . No. 32 , 1958 ( online ).
  • Lisa Sanner: "As if the end of the world were here". The catastrophic explosions at BASF in 1921 and 1948 (=  publications by the Ludwigshafen am Rhein City Archives . No. 42 ). Ludwigshafen am Rhein 2015, ISBN 978-3-924667-47-4 (Dissertation Munich, LMU, under the title: The Oppauer Explosion [September 21, 1921] and the Ludwigshafen tank car explosion [July 28, 1948] at BASF - a comparative study industrial disasters in post-war times ).

Movie

The DEFA film The Council of Gods refers to this catastrophe.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b Occupation damage: not provided for in the law . In: Der Spiegel . No. 32 , 1958 ( online ).
  2. a b c d e f dpa : 60 years ago: an explosion shook BASF. Archived from the original on July 30, 2010 ; Retrieved August 22, 2010 .
  3. This number is automatically determined each time a page is viewed , has been rounded to the nearest million euros and relates to last January.

Coordinates: 49 ° 29 ′ 42 "  N , 8 ° 26 ′ 10.5"  E