The Arzamas railway disaster was the explosion of three cars of freight train No. 3115 as it approached the Arzamas-I station of the Gorky Railway, which occurred on June 4, 1988 at 9:32 a.m. The train was traveling from Dzerzhinsk to the Kazakh SSR with 120 tons of explosives on board. The disaster killed 91 people and injured about 1,500, and hundreds of families lost their homes. In terms of the scale of destruction, the explosion became one of the largest man-made emergencies in Soviet history.[1][2]

Circumstances of the disaster

In late May 1988, at the Sverdlov Plant in Dzerzhinsk — one of the largest producers of explosives in the country — a consignment was assembled for mining and oil-extraction enterprises in the Kazakh SSR: 120 tons of hexogen, octogen, ammonal, ammonite, and TNT. By June 3, freight train No. 3115, driven by engineer Yury Mikanovich and assistant engineer Sergey Kashirov, had left Dzerzhinsk; the explosives were in the first three cars directly behind the two-section 2TE10M-0405 diesel locomotive.[2]

Arzamas-I station was located on the northern outskirts of the city, surrounded by private housing. On the approach to it, Mikanovich reduced speed to 22 km/h. 324 meters from the station building, a detonation occurred in the second lead car, which was carrying 27 tons of hexogen and 30 tons of octogen in paper sacks, instantly engulfing the adjacent cars.[2] One section of the locomotive was thrown 200 meters, or according to other sources 2 km;[3] both members of the locomotive crew survived.[2]

Scale of destruction

The explosion left a crater 60–70 m long, 25–30 m wide, and 6–8 m deep; according to other sources, two connected craters were formed, 3.5 and 4.5 m deep and 26 and 76 m in diameter.[2][4] Ninety-one people died, including 14 to 17 children; 744 people were injured according to the official summary of the investigation, and about 1,500 according to general data on the victims.[2][1]

The explosion destroyed or damaged about 1,000 residential buildings, of which 44 (according to other sources, 151–180) were completely destroyed; 823 families lost their homes, and 1,502 families were affected in total.[2][5] Destroyed were 250 meters of railway track, the Arzamas-I railway station building, an electrical substation, power lines, a gas pipeline, and the sewer system; two hospitals, 49 kindergartens, 14 schools, 69 stores, and 160 industrial and commercial facilities were damaged.[4][2]

The Regional Civil Defense Headquarters evacuated about 3,950 people from the emergency zone. Fire crews, including several fire trains, cut off the wall of fire from a nearby oil storage depot. The power grid was restored within a day, water supply and sewerage within three days, and gas supply within a week.[2]

Investigation and Theories of the Cause

A brief official announcement of the disaster appeared on the day of the explosion; on June 5, a TASS correspondent filed a detailed report from Arzamas.[2] The government commission named violations of the rules for loading and transporting explosives as the main theory, and also allowed for spontaneous detonation caused by mechanical damage or a malfunction of the gas pipeline beneath the tracks.[1] Theories of a terrorist attack and foreign sabotage were also considered.[3][4]

The KGB conducted dozens of investigative experiments at the Kapustin Yar test range: railcars were set on fire, blown up, and fired upon with various weapons, and transport conditions were simulated — about 150 railcars were destroyed. Not a single experiment reproduced the picture of the disaster. The materials of the state inquiry are classified and remain inaccessible.[3]

Aftermath and Remembrance

For the families left without housing, construction of a new residential area began in the south of Arzamas as early as June 1988; by November of that year the buildings were completed — this is how the city's 11th microdistrict came into being.[2][4]

A memorial with a chapel has been erected at the site of the explosion in Arzamas's 1st Microdistrict. The monument is made of twisted rails and fragments of railcars, built at the Kommash plant to a design by Ye. P. Mastryansky; the clock at the center of the composition is stopped at 09:32. The names of the dead are carved on the memorial.[5][3] Every year on June 4, mourning rallies are held at the memorial on Vedernikov Street; at the 30th anniversary of the disaster, in 2018, the ceremony was attended by the chairman of the Legislative Assembly of Nizhny Novgorod Region, Yevgeny Lebedev.[1]

Sources

  1. V gorode N — Thirty Years After the Explosion: Arzamas Remembers the Day of the Terrible Tragedy
  2. ab-dpo.ru — The Arzamas Railway Disaster (June 4, 1988)
  3. fishki.net — The Arzamas Railway Disaster
  4. pikabu.ru — 31 Years Ago an Explosion Thundered at Arzamas-1 Station — Pikabu
  5. transport-nn.ru — Monument to the 1988 Railway Explosion in Arzamas — Memorial to Those Killed in the Explosion at Arzamas I Station — History, Description, Photos, Map Coordinates, Address, Reviews