Pollution
Humain
Environnement
Economique

The powder drying building at a gunpowder factory exploded at 8:35 am, killing the 2 employees working inside on the spot. The blast of the explosion also caused collapse of the building located opposite that had been used to cut gunpowder ribbons; the employee inside the collapsed building was buried under the rubble and very seriously injured. Many other site employees were hurt to varying degrees by falling objects and shattered glass.

Only craters remained where once stood the building at the origin of the explosion. Many other factory buildings sustained damage and window panes were broken on the majority of site structures. Several pipelines crossing the premises were also destroyed. In the town of Muiden, 350 residences and buildings were damaged, with total property loss appraised at 1 million Dutch guilders (national currency at the time). Fire-fighters, gendarme officers, several elected officials, members of the military equipped to search through rubble, road emergency crews and local physicians all arrived on the scene to provide assistance to victims. A joint investigation was conducted by the gendarmerie, labour inspection office and Dutch national defence agency in order to determine the causes of this explosion. Several hypotheses were envisaged.

In Building number 7, two dry powder tanks had been swapped with 2 wet powder tanks. The lid on one of these tanks would not have been appropriately grounded and/or the floor not previously swept or washed with abundant water, in noncompliance with procedural guidelines. The powder would have charged this lid, and then an electrostatic discharge along with a spark would have caused the explosion, which subsequently spread to all tanks, including the two located outside the building.

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