[Wikipedia] Hamlet chicken processing plant fire

[Faraaz Damji]

   The Hamlet chicken processing plant fire was an industrial disaster
   that took place at the Imperial Foods chicken processing plant in
   Hamlet, North Carolina, USA, on September 3, 1991 after a failure in a
   faulty modification to a hydraulic line.  Twenty-five people were
   killed and fifty-four injured in the fire as they were trapped behind
   locked fire doors.  Due to a lack of inspectors, the plant had never
   received a safety inspection in eleven years of operation, and it is
   thought that a single inspection would have easily prevented the
   tragedy.  A full federal investigation was launched, which resulted in
   the owner receiving a 20-year prison sentence, and the company
   received the highest fines ever handed out in the history of North
   Carolina.  However, the investigation also highlighted failings in the
   authoritative enforcement of existing safety regulations, and resulted
   in a number of worker safety laws being passed.  Accusations of racism
   were leveled at both the fire service and the city of Hamlet in the
   aftermath of the fire.  The plant was never reopened.  The fire remains
   the worst industrial disaster ever to strike North Carolina, and the
   third worst American industrial disaster, with only the 1947 Texas
   City disaster and the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire being
   worse.

Read the rest of this article:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet_chicken_processing_plant_fire


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Today's selected anniversaries:

301:
   San Marino, one of the smallest nations in the world and the world's
   oldest republic still in existence, was founded by Saint Marinus.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Marino)

1260:
   Egyptian Mamluks defeated the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in
   Palestine, marking the point of maximum westward expansion of the
   Mongol Empire.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ain_Jalut)

1783:
   Great Britain and the United States signed the Treaty of Paris,
   formally ending the American Revolutionary War.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_%281783%29)

1901:
   The National Flag of Australia, a Blue Ensign defaced with the
   Commonwealth Star and the Southern Cross, flew for the first time atop
   the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Australia)

1976:
   The NASA Viking 2 spacecraft landed on Mars and took the first
   close-up, color photos of the planet's surface.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_2)


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Wiktionary's Word of the day:

   sublimate: (<i>physics</i>): To change state from a solid to a gas (or
   from a gas to a solid) without passing through the liquid state.
   (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sublimate)


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Wikiquote of the day:

   A harbor, even if it is a little harbor, is a good thing, since
   adventurers come into it as well as go out, and the life in it grows
   strong, because it takes something from the world, and has something
   to give in return.  -- Sarah Orne Jewett
   (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sarah_Orne_Jewett)