A disaster that sounded absurd- until it happened
On this day in 1919, Boston experienced one of the strangest and deadliest industrial disasters in modern history: the Great Molasses Flood.
Shortly after noon, a massive steel storage tank belonging to the Purity Distilling Company suddenly burst in the city’s North End, releasing an estimated 2.3 million gallons of molasses into the surrounding streets.
What followed was not a slow spill, but a fast-moving wave- up to nine metres high in places- that surged through the neighbourhood at speeds reported to reach 50 kilometres per hour.
A wall of molasses through the city
The thick, sticky liquid smashed buildings, uprooted railway tracks, and swept people, horses and vehicles along with it. Entire structures were torn from their foundations. Firefighters described hearing a roar “like a machine gun” as the rivets holding the tank together failed one by one.
Twenty-one people were killed and more than 150 injured. Some victims drowned; others were crushed or trapped and suffocated in the heavy syrup, which hardened rapidly in the winter cold.
The disaster unfolded in the North End of Boston, one of the city’s most densely populated areas at the time.
Why was there so much molasses?
Molasses was not an oddity in early 20th-century America. It was a key industrial commodity, used to produce ethanol, particularly important during World War I, when alcohol was needed for munitions and explosives.
The tank, built in 1915, stood 15 metres high and 27 metres wide. Residents had long complained that it leaked constantly, staining nearby buildings brown and giving off a strong smell. Rather than repair it properly, the company reportedly painted the tank brown to hide the leaks.
The aftermath and accountability
Cleanup took weeks. Molasses coated streets, buildings and the harbour, and witnesses recalled that on hot days, the smell lingered for decades.
The flood led to one of the first major class-action lawsuits in US history. After years of legal battles, the company was found responsible, with investigators concluding that the tank had been poorly constructed and inadequately tested.
The case became a landmark moment for corporate accountability and engineering standards, influencing how industrial infrastructure would be regulated in the decades that followed.
A disaster remembered for its strangeness- and its cost
More than a century later, the Great Molasses Flood remains infamous because of its surreal nature. But beneath the bizarre imagery lies a serious story of negligence, industrial shortcuts and human loss.
What sounds almost comic on first hearing was, for those caught in it, terrifying and fatal- a reminder that even the most unlikely materials can become deadly when safety is ignored.
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