Episode
Modern Marvels: Engineering Disasters 11
Overview
Disasters profiled are a liquid natural gas explosion in Cleveland, the collapse of the Kansas City Hyatt walkway, flooding of the Yangtze River in 1931, as well as sinkholes caused by sewer collapses in San Francisco and Atlanta. Also features the impacts of asbestos on the modern world.
Details
- Series
- Modern Marvels
- Season
- Season 11
- Episode
- Episode 55
- Air date
- 2004-10-26
- Runtime
- 44 min
Episode context
Engineering Disasters 11 is Episode 55 in Season 11 of Modern Marvels. It aired on 2004-10-26. The runtime is 44 min.
Previous / Next
More episodes from this season
Episode 53: Presidential Movers
Episode 57: Japanese Sub at Pearl Harbor
Episode 52: Engineering Disasters 10
Episode 58: M1 Abrams Supertank!
Episode 51: Guns of the Civil War
Episode 59: Engineering Disasters 12
Episode 50: Engineering Disasters 9
What happens when the calculations of builders and engineers prove wrong and their constructs come tumbling down? In this episode, we examine the 1987 failure of the Schoharie Creek Bridge in New York; the partial destruction by a runaway freighter of the Riverwalk Marketplace in New Orleans in 1996; the roof collapse of the Rosemont Horizon Arena in Illinois in 1979; the deadliest grain-dust explosion on record in Westwego, Louisiana, when a grain elevator exploded in 1977; and the crash of the British R101 airship in the 1920s.
Episode 60: Surveillance Tech
Episode 49: Harvesting
Cutting, digging, picking, stripping, shaking, and raking–whatever the crop, there's a custom machine to harvest it. It all began with handpicking and today it's often one man and one machine harvesting hundreds of acres in a single day. The farmer may even get a little help from satellites. Far above the earth, high-resolution photography is giving the grower more opportunities to cut costs and maximize the harvest. From the debut of the sickle in ancient Egypt to McCormick's famous Reaper to the field of ergonomics that assists human harvesters, we'll dig into the past and future of the harvest.
Episode 61: Engineering Disasters 13