You got that right! I was expecting something on the order of OKC, but, this is almost on the magnitude of the April, 1947 SS Grandcamp explosion in Texas City.
I was in the fourth grade -- about 17 miles away from the Grandcamp -- when the shockwave knocked things off our desks. We had a clear view of Texas City out across the Coastal Plain, and I have distinct memories of the bright orange (oxides of nitrogen from the ammonium nitrate) smoke before the explosion, and mushroom cloud afterward.
Many kids said, "an A-Bomb!", but the smoke soon turned black from burning petroleum, and I said, "No, there was some kind of chemical fire first; it's probably a chemical plant explosion".
Lots of the kids' fathers worked in Texas City, so, for that reason -- and to clear the Galveston Highway for emergency traffic from Houston -- they quickly shut down the (Webster) school and bussed us the 7 miles back to our homes across from the gate of Ellington AFB.
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I have worked with the Chinese. They have a totally different mindset toward risk to human life than we do. They had no scruples about storing high explosives in a warehouse with tons of all sorts of other toxic chemicals (including cyanide salts) -- in a major city!
That must have been one amazing experience. I heard that at least half the dead were onlookers who had gathered to view the ship on fire, without any notion that it could blow.
Odd: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3324923/posts