Street Whale Explosion | National Geographic

to estimate the amount of force required
to blow up such a huge whale British
explosives expert Terry Thompson reviews
the footage of the bloody aftermath this
incredible event involved a rupturing of
the sperm whale’s abdomen which caused
material from the sperm whale to be
projected quite a large distance
for instance here you might just be able
to make out a mass of material just to
Jason next to this car here that car is
about 30 metres from the sperm whale so
for that to have been projected 30
metres indicates to me just how volatile
and event this was my astir nation of
this would be it would be the equivalent
to between two to five pounds of TNT
equivalent explosives would have caused
similar damage to test his theory
Thompson is using four pounds of
dynamite to simulate the blast we’re
gonna detonate in the middle of a huge
mound of peat it will produce a tamping
effect on the explosive the peat bags
are approximately the same size and
weight of the body parts that were
thrown across the street in Taiwan if
the peat bags are furnished similar
distance and some remain intact then the
experiment will have been successful
three-two-one
good we can see from here there are
still quite a few full bags lying around
I can see a kidney there it’s quite easy
to imagine that that’s your part of the
world intestine similarly with all these
other back there Thompson’s estimation
looks accurate the heavy peat bags have
thrown a similar distance to the whales
guts I think that’s as near a
representation of what took place in
town when I look at a positive up to the
truth
the blast required four pounds of
dynamite the equivalent of 30 hand
grenades if anybody had been unlucky
enough to be standing immediately
adjacent to the vehicle when that
happened they would have suffered quite
serious injury perhaps even death but
how can a mammal contains such a huge
amount of potentially lethal energy