Friday 19th January 6:40pm Families were just settling down for the evening. Many women were doing mending or cooking, children cooking. Suddenly at 6:52pm a explosion creates terror , had the enemy arrived?
At a munitions factory in Silvertown carnage had erupted. A fire had broke out in the melt-pot room, people were rushing around trying to get the fire under control. The factory had been opened two years into the war and at the height of production was producing up to nine tons per day. The workers were trying to get put out the fire and had got most of it under control when the TNT caught fire causing the large explosion.
The explosion could be heard for miles around and red-hot rubble was causing more destruction by causing fires and injuring people. A gasometer gasholder was damaged which caused a fireball from 200,000 cubic meters of gas. As well as this local warehouses, homes and other buildings were also damaged. This meant that more people were injured in the surrounding area as well as the many killed in within the factory.
The emergency services worked tirelessly to put out fires and help the injured and well as help carry out any repairs needed. The Salvation Army and the YMCA also helped doing anything that was needed including giving out food and drink.
In the weeks and months that followed, an investigation was carried out, which although it concluded that there was no single cause for the explosion, it was highly unlikely to have been sabotaged by the Germans or from an air raid. Further investigations proved however that the sight that the War Office had chosen for the TNT factory was unsafe for such a use, especially in such a highly populated area.
In this disaster, 73 people were killed with a further 400 people injured, an estimated 70,000 properties were damaged with even more damaged beyond repair. The Edward medal was awarded to Andreas Angel and George Wenbourne. The Kings Police Medal was awarded to PC Edward George Brown Greenoff of which you can find the plaque dedicated to Edward on the Memorial to Heroic self sacrifice in Postman's Park in London.
It was decided that due to the damage of most of the properties in the immediate area, they would be demolished and rebuilt. In the report, it would found that most of the people in the area were living in poor unsanitary conditions. Unfortunately it took for a disaster to happen and many lives lost for the higher powers to realise that an area was living in poor conditions.
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