Pete Dykes

The Eastman Explosion Tragedy Pete Dykes

The sudden unexpected explosion at the Tennessee Eastman Aniline Plant in October, 1960, brought horrific death and destruction to the huge Kingsport industrial complex. Following the shattering blast, nearby storage tanks of chemicals exploded as well, adding to the growing piles of rubble and debris that heaped up, burying bodies and body parts in a desolate scene of destruction. Flames spread, and multiple drums of stored material exploded as the heat reached them. Nothing like this had ever happened at the forty year old facility, where more than twelve thousand employees earned their livings. "The Eastman Explosion Tragedy" takes the reader back in time with eyewitness accounts of that terrible day in East Tennessee.