Port of Busan, 부산항

”Mother! Motherrrrrr!” a small child who couldn’t have been older than five walked through the smoke and debris, coughing and bloody. Caked in so must dust and detritus that she looked like porcelain, she only heard the crackle of fires, the screaming of dying, and the sound of distant sirens as she looked for her mother. She tripped on something and fell to the ground. As a firefighter whisked the child away, she noticed what she had tripped on had been a human leg, torn from its body at mid thigh…

ONE HOUR EARLIER

It was a regular idyllic day at the Port of Busan. One of the oldest major sea ports in Korea, it was bustling with life as usual. However, something would happen that fateful day that would taint Korea for decades to come – an event perhaps more traumatic than any since the military dictatorship or the Japanese occupation. Shortly after 11:00, a devastating chain reaction started on a cargo ship, one that would shock the world and lead to utter chaos.

Investigations into the source of what happened next, place it on a shipment of ammonium nitrate. Known as saltpeter in an older time, ammonium nitrate is a potentially dangerous naturally occurring chemical compound that is most often used in fertilizers. This shipment had arrived in Busan Harbor two days prior to the event, point of origin Chile, point of destination Myanmar, to be processed into fertilizer. It is impossible to determine how the ammonium nitrate was ignited, but the current hypothesis is a dockworker failed to adequately put out a cigarette, which was then blown by the wind into a shipping container filled with the stuff. Why is it likely difficult to determine the cause of the ignition is because when the ammonium nitrate encountered this external fuel source… Beirut 2020 looked like an indie film.

The initial explosion was devastating on its own. The cargo ship that was docked in the harbor and which had carried the ammonium nitrate was instantly destroyed, rendered a melting mass of twisted metal. Ranking as the 4th largest non-nuclear accident in history, with the force of 1.74kt of TNT, the fireball leveled an area with a radius of 260m around the ship. A shockwave caused severe damage in an area with a radius of half a kilometer around the blast. Windows were shattered 1.5 kilometers away. In the initial blast, 87 dockworkers were killed in the most agonizing ways, ways that I don’t even wish to describe. Several major cargo ships were destroyed utterly, along with billions of dollars in product. However, there is something curious about the port of Busan.

An extremely short distance from the harbor itself, where the ill-fated shipment met its end, is a major military harbor and small base… too close to survive.

Massive damage was done to military buildings on the facility, with those closest to the civilian harbor collapsing. Over 48 soldiers and military personnel lost their lives before they knew what was going on. But this was not the end. A Dokdo-class ship moored along the southwest wall of the harbor was the first affected, suffering heavy damages. 12 crew on the deck were killed, along with 8 inside, while debris as large as shipping containers (duh) from the blast tore through its hull at various points with the force of missiles. Taking on water quickly, the ship is already listing 4 degrees starboard. It collided hard with the side wall of the harbor, causing damage both to the ships starboard side and the port facilities, and killing several more seamen.

While it is—for now—still afloat, other ships weren’t so lucky. Tugboats near the Dokdo were capsized almost instantly. An Incheon-class frigate moored perpendicular to the Dokdo against the north wall of the harbor suffered extensive hull damage. Much of its stern was submerged before long, with sailors rushing to get off the ship, losing three in the process including the captain who was trapped below deck when it finally took on too much water to stay afloat. An air bubble in the bow has maintained a small section of the ship above the sea level, while the rest has collapsed to the floor of the harbor. Four other ships suffered heavy damage, while two suffered light damage. In total, an additional 34 soldiers and navymen were killed and some 240 wounded.

Remember when I said initial blast? Yeah, things aren’t over. An oil tanker docked at the port north of the original cargo ship. While not close enough to the ammonium nitrate to be engulfed by it entirely, the explosion caused a cursed chain reaction of hell, that led any Christians in the vicity to think the end times were coming. Triggered by the ammonium nitrate blast, several tanks on the tanker caught fire, sending plumes of pitch-black smoke into the sky. At the same time, debris tore into the hull elsewhere, leading to thousands of barrels of oil pouring into the harbor some of which in turn has caught fire. The fire spread from the initial tanker to another docked nearby. Aside from two sailors killed, most managed to evacuate as soon as the initial blast occurred, but the danger now comes as the fire spreads and firefighting crews panic with what task to tackle first.

The fire spread onto land, with structures and gas lines weakened by the ammonium nitrate explosion. Small explosions occurred at buildings closest to the harbor, while burst oil and gas networks elsewhere triggered a massive blaze consuming much of the immediate vicinity. Smaller explosions abounded: gas stations, fuel reserves, a large explosion rocked the area directly north of the harbor where a sizeable oil reserve was located. It leveled the area of a city block and killed 35 when it went up in flames, and only provided more sources for what was becoming a truly devastating fire to spread.

At around this time, the firefighters who had responded to the military and the initial blast, as well as the inland oil container blast, realized they should have focused their attention elsewhere. Either heat or pressure became too high, and a hearty explosion gutted the middle tanks of the ship. Spreading the fire to much of the second tanker and, more importantly, the expanding massive oil slick in the harbor’s waters. Between the shoreline fire and now the harbor’s fire, the scene was horrifying. Men who had jumped from other ships in the harbor after the initial blast now found themselves covered in slick oil and burning alive while in the water.

Fires in the rest of the southern city continue to rage, with the Nam District particularly ravaged. Dozens are continuing to die, and more and more explosions rock the city as the fires reach gas stations and fuel tanks.

Today, Korea has suffered a horror.

948 civilian deaths, including several Americans, Russians, Chinese, Japanese, Australians, and Saudis.

188 military deaths

10,000 wounded

Hundreds of billions of dollars in damage

1 Dokdo-class severely damaged and taking water

1 Incheon-class lost

2 Ganggyeong-class severely damaged

1 Chamshuri-class severely damaged

1 Pohang-class severely damaged, 2 lightly damaged

1 Incheon-class lightly damaged

Massive dual ship oil spill, ecological disaster imminent.

With 1.74 kilotons of TNT, this explosion ranks as the 4th largest non-nuclear accident. By death toll, only Halifax outranks it.