Xaltozan Explosion

Xaltozan Explosion

Column of smoke produced by the explosion looming over the Xaltozan waterway
Date	10 December 1928
Time	10:09:15 am
Location	Xaltozan narrows Aztaco, Zacapican
Deaths	982
Non-fatal injuries	10,000

The Xaltozan Explosion was a disaster which resulted from the collision of the Zacapine freighter SS Tlatetexoani and the Tyreseian cargo ship the SS Pasca in the Xaltozan narrows which separate Angatahuaca bay and the Angatahuaca-Amegatlan seaport from the Amictlan ocean. The collision of the two vessels started a fire on the SS Tlatetexoani which heated its volatile cargo of fuel oil and high explosive compounds, triggering an explosion which would remain one of the largest human-made explosions ever recorded. The explosion in the Xaltozan narrows caused severe damage to the nearby town of Payon, as well as the Tepozilpitoc distict of Amegatlan, resulting in nearly 1,000 dead and the injury of many thousands of people. Today, the Xaltozan explosion is remembered as the worst man-made disaster in Zacapine history, far exceeding the country's record of nuclear accidents both in financial cost as well as in loss of life.

The Tlatetexoani was serving under the Zacapine merchant marine engaged in the transport of cargo from Zacapican to Pulacan as part of both nations ongoing involvement in the Hanaki War. As part of this effort, the Tlatetexoani had undergone a significant refit while in port at Tecolotlan, where it was loaded with multiple types of flammable and high explosive compounds to be used in the war effort in Malaio. The ship was entering the Amegatlan-Angatahuaca seaport through the Xaltozan narrows to refuel and prepare for the trans-oceanic voyage when it struck the outgoing Pasca, breaching the hull and containment sections within the ship, igniting the fuel oil stores and spreading the blaze which would in a matter of minutes reached the temperature threshhold to set off a chain reaction, detonating the high explosive compounds stored in the cargo holds. The resulting explosion, which occured only 20 minutes after the initial collision, represented a release of energy equivalent to roughly 3 kilotons of TNT.

The explosion severely damaged the Pasca and totally destroyed the Tlatetexoani, fragments of which were scattered as far as 10 kilometers away. The pressure wave generated by the explosion was strong enough to break apart and knock over trees, electrical transmission lines, and to demolish brick, concrete and wooden buildings within a 750 meter radius, which included most of the small town of Payon on the west side of the Xaltozan narrows. The release of energy vaporized a portion of the surrounding seawater, sending a shockwave into the ground via the seabed which would be detected by seismometers hundreds of kilometers away. While many communities in the Angatahuaca area were distant enough to survive the pressure wave of the explosion without much damage, the tsunami generated by the explosion struck the seaside districts of Amegatlan and to a lesser extent Angatahuaca itself causing further damage across the bay.

The response of the disaster was extensive, representing one of the largest relief efforts ever undertaken by the Zacapine state. The thousands of injured needed to be tended to, while the many hundreds of dead also needed to accounted for and removed. The initial process of removing the wounded from the direct radius of the explosion was difficult as the explosion had knocked out the rail bridge connecting Payon, the site of the greatest destruction, with the rest of the region. Small fishing vessels and pleasure craft manned by civilian volunteers proved instrumental in evacuating the wounded by sea. Tens of thousands were left homeless by the disaster, with the small community of Payon never fully recovering. Repairs to the seaside districts and port facilities in Amegatlan and Angatahuaca restored the critical seaport to functionality within just one week of the explosion. The Xaltozan Epitaph in what remains of the community of Payon serves as the principle memorial dedicated to those affected by the disaster, while several smaller memorials exist across the many districts of surrounding Angatahuaca bay communities impacted by the events of the 10th of December, 1928.

Background

The disaster occurred in the Xaltozan narrows which serves as the only navigable connection between the enclosed natural harbor of the Angatahuaca bay to the north and the open Amictlan ocean to the south. As the bottleneck controlling the access in and out to the largest port in Zacapican, it was in the 1920s and remains to the present day one of the most heavily trafficked waterways in the world suffering from regular congestion from vessels simultaneously entering and exiting the bay in large numbers. The maritime passage through the narrows runs in a north by northwest to south by southeast direction, with an eastern and western shore on either side. The eastern shore, known to the locals as the "fortress wall", features tall cliffs and rocky outcroppings of an igneous geological providence making it ill-suited to buildings and so was largely uninhabited. However, the much flatter western shore was amenable to building, and had become home to the small fishing community of Payon built on a peninsular extension jutting out from the western shore into the Xaltozan narrows. The neck connecting the peninsula where Peyon lay with the mainland was susceptible to flooding during storms and unusually high tides, motivating the construction of a railway bridge which would connect the town to the mainland as part of a line running north along the western shore all the way to Angatahuaca itself.

Due to its strategic position controlling the entrance to the bay, the site of the town of Payon had been fortified first by the Aztapaman and then the Zacapine republics. A barracks on the lowland of Payon worked in coordination with an artillery fortress atop the cliffs of the eastern shore as the main naval defenses of the highly strategic bay. The strategic position compelled the government to construct and arsenal, a munitions store and a barracks in the town, as well as building the rail connection to the town to improve the infrastructural connections to the position from the rest of the Aztaco region. The Payon peninsula was also strategic for non-military purposes, with a fishing wharf on its southern shores allowing local fishermen to escape the tightening traffic restrictions being faced by those still operating from wharves within the Angatahuaca bay. This advantage drew a significant number of settlers to the flat peninsula, expanding Payon's population from a few hundred to 8,000 in a few short years. Payon had far outpaced its infrastructure, which had been built primarily to sustain only the military installation on the peninsula, and its status as a fishing community and dock rather than a commercial cargo facility left the town low on the priority list while much of the rest of the bay area was undergoing huge developments as part of the ongoing industrialization of Zacapican which defined the era.

Disaster

The first events contributing to the disaster at Xaltozan narrows took place in the port of Tecolotlan on the opposite coast of Zacapican. This was the port in which the SS Tlatetexoani, formerly a conventional merchant cargo vessel, was being refitted to carry war material to Malaio as part of Zacapican's ongoing involvement in the Hanaki War. Specifically, the Tlatetexoani was being modified to carry material needed for munitions production. These modifications involved dividing the cargo hold of the Tlatetexoani into several sections which were enclosed with wood and rubber to eliminate any possible source of a spark which could ignite the cargo. Once modifications to the hold were completed, the Tlatetexoani was loaded with high explosive compounds including Picric acid and Trinitrotoluene by the dockworkers of the Tecolotlan port. This was considered safe with the modifications to the ship, as the least stable of the compounds the Picric acid has a flash point of 150 degrees Celsius, meaning that a fire would have to rage to such temperatures in order to ignite the picric acid and set off a chain reaction detonating the ship's cargo, considered an unlikely event with the minimal accelerants and fire safety modifications added to the ship. At the last minute, the dockworkers were ordered to load a large quantity of fuel oil also bound for Pulacan, stored in barrels in separate compartments within the hold, which introduced a large amount of accelerant onto the ship not originally accounted for in the plan to modify the vessel to safely carry explosive compounds.

The Tlatetexoani finished the modifications and loading process and was underway from Tecolotlan in the western Zacaco Republic of Zacapican in the early hours of December 8th, with a planned stop in Angatahuaca in Aztaco on the east coast to take on more fuel and provisions for its long crossing to Pulacan via the Oceceya cold current running west to east across the ocean. It arrived in the waters off the Aztaco Republic in the early morning hours of the 10th of December, but did not enter the Xaltozan narrows passage until after 10 in the morning due to the delays of traffic entering the bay. The vessel was crewed by 18 Zacapine sailors commanded by Captain Pizatzi Coyametl, with Coyametl and the harbor pilot Izel Tlamac maneuvering the ship through the narrows.

The Pasca was cargo vessel registered in Tyreseia and crewed by one dozen Tyreseian nationals, as well as the Zacapine harbor pilot Xolotl Namiton who was at the helm of the vessel at the time of the accident. The vessel had arrived in the Amegatlan-Angatahuaca seaport the day prior with a cargo of copper wire manufactured in Sante Reze which was needed for the ongoing electrification projects in eastern Zacapican. A contract to carry a load of steel from the Amegatlan steelworks to Kayahallpa had fallen through, leaving the Pasca to leave port with an empty hold with the destination of Quitzapatzaro where Captain Insustria Marjuña intended to take on another cargo of steel, this time from Tequitinitlan.