Cliff, Hope you don't live close to the fireworks storage/mfg facility that went up... Just spoke with a friend in Endhoven (sp) he said like 200+ people were injured and 20+ died?!?

I live on the other side of the country. Officially 15 were killed, 520 injured and 200 are still missing. The fireworks-factory that exploded was in the middle of an urban area. Most people who lived there had no idea they were living right next to a fireworks-factory. The explosion was tremendous, comparable with the impact of a missile. I've made a collage of tv-footage to give you an idea about the devistation. The color image on the bottom left was about the last image a local tv-reporter made. One-tenths of a second later, the houses in that picture were wiped off of the face of the earth... The red dot with the arrow is where the tv-reporter was standing, a good hundred yards from the explosion. The reporter wasn't (seriously) injured, he was filming from the door of a house. He was blown in the house due to the shock-wave.

It was very fortunate this happened on a saturday. A lot of people weren't home or on holiday...

PS: do not link to this picture from other sites, I don't want my server to crash due to traffic.

[This message has been edited by Cliff Pennock (edited 05-15-2000).]

Somebody is going to burn for this...

WOW! thats amazing! they didn't know... yep someone will be seriously nailed for that... Thats crazy... impressive pic! the media have any ideas how much explosive was there? the 200 missing any leads or ideas about them at all? thats terrible.

Some of the missing people are complete families, so they could be on holiday. But others are missing family-members (children, parents, brothers, sisters, etc.) so the chance is pretty big they have been killed. Problem is that the explosion was so big, and the heat so intense, that they probably will never find any remains of those killed...

There was just new footage released from a fireman filming from a rooftop. That was probably the most impressive footage I've seen because you get a good picture of the explosion. It was big. It was really, really big.

I've been reading about this in the paper. (Advantage #1 of working in a convenience store--free access to current newspapers.). I've seen some pics, but not one like that! Excuse the language, but **** me! (I deleted that one myself, but I think you get the picture.) It's a good thing the factory was only about 1/6th full. Can anyone say "lynching"? How about "lawsuit"? Actually that's pretty scary to think that some moron built a fireworks warehouse in the middle of a populated area. I suppose that could happen to any of us. Cliff--Please keep us informed as to any new developments (like maybe the name of the responsible (err...irresponsible) party)).

thanks for the update Cliff. please keep us posted... Feel bad for the hundreds of people effected by this tradgedy.

Nothing really new yet. The official death-toll is now 16 and over 200 people are still missing. The factory wasn't build in a populated area, the houses were simply built around the factory (the factory was to be moved but someone at city-hall got tired of waiting and started populating the area).

The police does not exclude arson.

so it's the citys fault for issuing the permits to build homes there... not the factorys fault for creaping in on the homes... huumm... that a state or local (city) issued permit?

I saw some more pics in todays paper. Rows and rows of burnt out cars. Not a pretty sight. They had some lame excuses for the 200 or so "missing" folks. Can't say I agree, but I guess time will tell. I don't know what the laws are in the Netherlands, but if it's ruled as arson and someone actually gets convicted, I hope they fry. The local paper, BTW, quoted someone over there as saying that the death toll was "only" 16 (so far). WTF does he mean by "only"?! I'll bet he wouldn't describe it that way if some of the 16 were related to him. What idiots to let houses be built around a fireworks depot. Welcome to the new millenium