Failure Knowledge Database - 100 Selected Cases

Explosion of Organic Peroxide caused due to Warehouse Fire
【July 14th, 1964
Terushige Ogawa.

Shinagawa, Tokyo , Japan】(Faculty of Engineering, Yokohama National University)

Mitsuo Kobayashi (Graduate School of New Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo)
Masamitsu Tamura (Graduate School of New Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo)

At around 21:56 on July 14th, 1964,

from the wa rehouse zo ne in the

coastalreclaimed land that adjoins the Tokyo Metropolitan Expressway No.1, suddenly a pillarof flames rose like fireworks with an explosion sound up into the night sky. The

explosion occurred at th e Katsushima wareh ouse of Takaragumi Co., Ltd. There weremany dangerous substances as well as non-dangerous materials in the warehouses andopen freight storage . T he d angerous substanc es consisted of self rea ctive materi als
such as nitrocellul ose, organic peroxides like methyl-ethyl-keton e-peroxide (MEKPO),
and inflammable fluids such as acetone.
The fire station still conducted fire t ower observation at this time , and this fire wasdiscovered by at least two fire s

tations almost simultaneously . Op en freighti ng

materials, s uch as nitrocellu lose, an d organic so lvents, such as aceton e, caused sma ll
explosions i ncessantly and continu ed to burn. A large n umber of p rofessional andvoluntary firemen fought a fire. M any reporters gathered to colle ct information about
the fir e, sin ce it occurred just n ear the M etropolitan Expressway Haneda, which is amajor expressway between T okyo and Yokohama. At 22:56, when it appeared that thefire would b e extinguish ed at last, a larg e e xplosion happe ned inside the ware house.
Fragments of the roofs of thr ee warehous es were scattered by the

explosion, which

produced a 100m high pillar of flames. As a result of thi s explosion, a totalof 19

persons were killed including 18 professional firemen and one voluntary fireman, and a
total of 1 17 persons w ere injured includ ing 80 professional fi remen, 12 voluntary
firemen, and 25 policemen and journalists.
The first ex plosion and fire se emed to be caused by the sp ontaneous ignition o f
nitrocellulose in d rum cans that had been sto red in the op en freight st orage. A cetone
and alcohol that wer e also stored there ignited , causing r epeated explosions. ME KPO
stored inside the warehouse was ig nited by the fire and exploded. In ad dition, the fire
spread to another warehouse which stored sundries, and thus the fire spread.
The reason why the fire became so l arge was the illegal storage of many substancesthat were d esignated as d angerous materials and controlled by the fire protection law

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Failure Knowledge Database - 100 Selected Cases

everywhere in the yard. Moreover , it was indicated that the management system h ad
been very loose. Furthermore, the data that was given to the fire fighting team was old,and it showed different stored materials from the practice. In addition, the request thatwas mad e by the emp loyees to th e fire fighters was only to p rotect the aceton e a ndnitrocellulose in the open freight storage. The fire fighters were only informed that thecontents of the wareh ouse we re ca nned food . Since m ost of the fire men d id not k now
the actual c onditions of the war ehouse in whi ch dangerous substances were stored, it
became a large disaster.
In short, careless management and control of the warehouse operation by managers
and supervisors caused the disaster.
Although the first ignition was caused by sp ontaneous ignit ion of nitro cellulose in
the open fre ight storag e, in the ap pealed c ourt decision in t he Tokyo Hi gh C ourt, t hejudge did not affirm clea rly that the cause of the explosion was spontaneous ignition of
the nitrocellulose based on the r esult of a certain exp eriment. However, nitrocellulose
should be h andled under th e p remise that sp ontaneous ig nition may occur, be cause
nitrocellulose is definitely unstable, and there have been many accid ents related tospontaneous ignition of nitrocellulose before this accident.
1. Event
On the night of July 14th, 1964, an

explosion and fire occurred at warehouse f or

dangerous materials and the op en freight st orage l ocated along the Metrop olitan
Expressway No.1 near Shibaura. The fire fighters noticed the fire
observation and mobilized theby fire tow er

second grade f ire fighting team immediately , which

consisted of 13 to 15 pump cars and one ambula nce. At the site where the fire occurred,
the employees who lived in the company houses at the site and voluntary firemen tried
initial firefighting using a small pump, but th ey could not do anything at all, and thefire sp read to engulf th e whol e op en freight st orage. The fire brigad e j udged that thefire was involved in dangerous materials from the observation of the flames on the way
to the site, and they requested the mobilizat ion of the chemical firebrigade, which

consisted of six fire engines for chemical fire.
The initial target of the fire brigade was to put out the fire of nitrocellulose, oils andfats in the o pen freight storage. However, the f orce of th e fire was stro ng and the fire
spread from a warehouse to another warehous e one after another. Given this situation,
the fire fighting crew w as strengthened by the third grade and then the fourth g rade
mobilization. Finally 26 pump cars, 14 chemi

cal fire fighting engines, 12 materialtransportation vehicles and seven fire boats tur ned out. The No.3 area where the fire2

Failure Knowledge Database - 100 Selected Cases

occurred and the No.5 area that was ad jacent to the N o.3 area on the n orth side weresurrounded with firefighters, and the fire in oth er areas se emed to be extinguished atlast. Until t hat moment, the firefighters knew only that the cont ents of buildings 6, 7,
and 8 in the No.3 area were paper and ciga rettes, the building of 5 in the same area
contained miscellaneous articles and canned food, and the b uilding 1 in the same area
and the op en freight sto rage contained nitrocellulose. In ad dition, the p ersons related
to the warehouse requested th e fire fighters to protect area No .5 becau se th ere was alarge amount of acetone, alcohol, and nitrocellulose in the open freight storage.

Under this situation, at 22:56, about an hour after the fire started, a large explosion
occurred at the warehouse No.12 for gen

eral materials, which had been rep orted tocontain canned food. The roofs of t he warehouse No.12 and the other two warehouses
adjoined the No.12 warehousewere scattered instantly , and an enormous pillar offlames with a large mushroom cloud rose from the site. The external walls were blown
away, and many firem en were buried under the wall. A crater over one meter in depth
was made at the center of the explosion.

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Failure Knowledge Database - 100 Selected Cases

The trigg er of this large exp losion and fi re seems to have been th e spontaneous
ignition of nitrocellulose at the open freight storage in the third area. Excessive storageof un-licens ed d angerous materials was th e reason of increase indamage. Many

victims wer e sacrificed because t he e mployees d id not know that the wareh ouse
contained organic peroxide MEKPO. However, the problem was not that the e mployees
did not know what the warehouse

contained. More seri ous cause of t he disaster wasthat the m anagers an d sup erintendents had stor ed a large am ount of d angerous
materials illegally, that they had not informed the employees about the stored material
nor had they introduced countermeasures ag ainst the acci dent, and furthermore t hat
they did not give sufficient information to the firefighting team.
The p resident of this wareh ouse c ompany had started business with themanagement of a h otel, and he also carried on businesses such as a contractor of civilengineering and constr uction and sales and p rocessing of seafood , w arehousing andshipping. It was not kn own wheth er or n ot h e had managed the wareh ouse businesswith sufficient kn owledge of the danger cau sed by a l arge am ount of d angerous
materials stored in the warehous es and th e d angers of n itrocellulose and ME KPO.
However, at lease the president should assign a qualified person for the manager of thewarehouse, a required number of qualified p ersons fo r su pervisors an d op erators forthe actual operations, and make sure that laws are observed.

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Failure Knowledge Database - 100 Selected Cases

2. Course
At around 21:56 on July 14th, a fi

re occu rred. At 22:00, t he public fire brigade

turned out. Although this was the s econd grade order, soon after it was changed to thethird grade, and then the fourth grade order were issued at 22:13.
At 20:56, a large explosion happened.
At 00:27 on July 15th, the spreading of fi re was successfully prevented.

At 01:38,

the fire was extinguished, but the complete treatment of the embers was not completed
until 14:00.
3. Cause
The t rue c ause of t his accid ent was the ca reless man agement. D angerous
materials that far exceeded the permitted qu antity limits w ere stored w ithout care. In
addition, the sup erintendents who d id not train andcontents of the stored materials, theeducate theoperators o n themethods of treating thematerials a nd

countermeasures against the fire should be blamed. Refusing the sto rage of materials
over the permitted qua ntity is originally th e responsibility of the manager. It is theduty of the managers and superintendents to grasp clearly the stored materials at thattime, to establish correct methods to treat the material, and to give correct information
to the authorities including the fire fighting team. The first spontaneous ignition might
have been p revented, a nd a large number of victims sacrificed to the disaster could

5Failure Knowledge Database - 100 Selected Cases

have been avoided, if the correct information had been provided.
Nitrocellulose is well known as a substance that ignites spontaneousl y. There aremany p ersons who estimate that t he caus e of this fire is spontaneous ignitionofnitrocellulose.
Furthermore, considering the size of the explosion, it must be the explosion of 2500
kg of MEKPO that was stored.
4. Process of cause elucidation
At first the ignition point was determined. On the basis of twenty testimonies byobservers who saw the f irst pillar of flames nea r the accident site, strai ght lines wereobtained by connecting each observer’s standing point and the reported direction of theflame, and t he lines int ersected at the op en fr eight storage in front of the wareh ouse
No.103. There were four layersof drum cans of nitrocellu lose at this position. The

conditions for spontaneous ignition of nitr ocellulose are a s follo ws (quoted from theliterature of Professor Kitagawa)(1) Stor age in a dry state. (2) Storage for acomparatively long period at a high temp erature. (3) Storage of a comparatively large
amount of material such that the heatof decomposition will be accumulated as the

diffusion of the heat o f d ecomposition is p revented. Th e weather wa s fine and the
maximum temperature was also high for a few d ays before the day of the accident, andthe temperature at the drum surface appeared to reach a maximum of 60-70℃, so thecondition (2) was satisfi ed. In addit ion, one drum contained 60 kg nitrocellulose in adry state. This quantity is enoug h to sati sfy the condition (3). The satisfaction of
condition (1) is considered as follow s. Alth ough the nitrocellulose was in a wet statethat contained 25% ethanol, it can be hy pothesized that the inn

er bag mad e o fpolyethylene had split. This hypot hesis is substantiated by the observation byusers that the p olyethylene bags of all of thothere d rum can s had almo st sp lit at theshoulder. If the polyethylene bag had split, the alcohol would have evaporated from theupper part, because it was heated to about 70 ℃ in the dr um can upper surfac e uponwhich the s un shon e. A p art of the evap orated ethanol wo uld have be en p ushed o ut
from the opening of the lid of the drum can with hot exp

anded air. Fresh air wou ld

have been d rawn into t he can, when the drum can was cooled at the ni ght. The upper
part would dry as a res ult of the r epetition of t his process. An employee testified that
he had observed this condition when heconducted sampling from th e drum cans on

June 10th. From th e facts above, it was su pposed that the following ev ents occu rred.
Nitrocellulose decomposed spontaneously, the heat of d ecomposition was accumulated,
the temperature reached ignition te mperature at around 22:00, an d the nitroc ellulose

6Failure Knowledge Database - 100 Selected Cases

explosively decomposed. The lid s of the d rum c ans came of f from the piled up d rum
cans, and the d rum ca ns scatter ed like rockets with jetti ng flames fr om th e lid s ide.
The nitrocellulose and alcohol w ere included in the material that sp outed from the l idside, and these materials helped to spread fire.
However, as described i n the “Outline” above, in the cri minal trial, a different
judgment w as also given. In th e h earing of intermediate appeal in the Tokyo High
Court, the “ spontaneous ignition theory” was not adopted as the fire accident ca use,
because th e evid ence s upporting the “sp ontaneous ignitio n the ory” was insufficientcompared to than that of the theory "the spontaneous ignition was not being generated"based on th e different estimation results. It is c onsidered that they d id not r egard thefacts as d enying the sp ontaneous ignition theory, but th ey chose to apply the p rincipleof "giving a p erson th e ben efit of t he d oubt". Nitrocellulose sh ould b e regarded as a
substance t hat ignites spontaneously if storage cond itions are bad . In the wareh ouse
where thelarge exp losion o ccurred, alabel for MEKPO was found during theinvestigation after the explosio n, and after the f irefighting authorities investigated theactual recei ving and sh ipping recor ds of th e w arehouse, t hey w ere certain that t hewarehouse had contained MEKPO. Therefore, they determined that the warehouse wasthe center of the explosion.
5. Immediate action
The employees who lived in the company house at the site tried to extinguish theinitial fire with some voluntary fi remen using a small

pump right after th e f irst

explosion, but it was of no avail.
6. Countermeasure
There is a rule of handl ing dangerous materials. The amount, the distance, andmethods of treating those materials etc. ar e p rescribed in t he fire p rotection law a ndother laws. The first countermeasure is at least to follow these laws.
More co ncretely, the following m easures may be requir ed: the quantity of storage
must be kept under the permitted limit, the correct storage method must be taken with
sufficient knowledge of the danger of nitrocellulose, the quantity and properties of thestored materials must be

correctly underst ood, suitabl e countermeasures agai nst

emergencies should be p repared at any

time, and suitable information must be

provided to the fire fighting authorities and police at need.

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Failure Knowledge Database - 100 Selected Cases

7. Knowledge
The laws that control d angerous materials, suc h as the fire p rotection law, show
the minimum regulations. It is reasonable that the minimum regulations given by thelaws must be kept.
Often chemical substances canunexpected changes when storageand otherhandling methods are incorrectly applied, and the substances may be transformed i nto
a d angerous state. N ot only so-c alled d angerous materials are d angerous. It is
important t o remember that we are always su rrounded wi th danger a nd that safety
should be maintained by attention and action in our normal activities.
8. Influence of failure
As for the human damage, 19 persons died and 117 persons were injured. All of thefatalities an d 92 of the injured w ere from the fire fighting brigades.

Policemen an dmembers of the p ress were also i ncluded among the inj ured. A ccording to anothe rreport, 158 persons were injured.
As for thephysical da mage, fifteen bu ildings including t he warehouse burned

down, two buildings were half destroyed by fire, and eight buildings bur ned partially.
The monetary damage was estimated to be 55 hundred million yen in the current priceof 1964. In addition, regulation of traffic and other effects caused social damage.
9. On the side
The fire t riggered a re vision of th e fire p rotection law . The r evised contents
included the following: extension of the authority of the firefighting, such as giving an
authority to do on-the-s pot inspection, t o or der the measures to b e taken, t o approve
the t emporary storag e of dangerous materials, and to r

equire the n ecessary

information at the accident site.
An article of the special edition of “Modern Fire Fighting, July, 2000” which dealt
with this explosion, says that “although it may seem that the most dangerous
materials ar e explosives, th e exp losives that are used ind ustrially are s afe and ma ss
production is possible, as long as the handling process is not mistaken. What are really
dangerous are materials such as M EKPO and other organic peroxide that are use d as
catalysts. Therefore, these materials cannot be used as explosives.”

References
・Tetsuzo Kitagawa, “Explosion of nitrocellulose and organic peroxide warehouse”,

8Failure Knowledge Database - 100 Selected Cases

Analysis of Explosion Accidents, 195-210, Nikkan Kogyo (1980)
・Second la boratory of Fire Fighti ng Scie nce Laboratory, T okyo Fire Dep. “Burning
characteristics of Methyl-ethyl-ketone peroxide”, Gekkan Shobo, 40, 57-64(1981)
・Kippei Takeuchi, “Reminiscence of the Kats ushima warehous e fire” , Kindai Sh obo,
extra ed., July, 2000, 61-68 (2000)

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