Ronan Point: How an Ordinary Gas Explosion Took Down a Tower

On 16 May 1968, a woman in flat 90 of a brand-new London tower block struck a match to light her cooker. The gas explosion that followed was, in the inquiry's own words, "not of exceptional violence" — 3 to 12 lb/in², squarely inside the normal range for a domestic gas explosion. It took the entire south-east corner of a 22-storey building down to the ground. The building had been handed over nine weeks earlier. This episode follows the Griffiths Report, page by page, to the finding almost nobody quotes: the joints that failed had never been calculated by anyone. SOURCES — Report of the Inquiry into the Collapse of Flats at Ronan Point, Canning Town — Griffiths, Pugsley & Saunders, HMSO, 1968 → https://archive.org/details/op1268013... · Explosion pressures 3–12 lb/in², "within the normal range" — p.61 · H.2 joint designed for a single lateral load of 12 lb/ft² — p.37 · Estimates of joint failure pressure ranged from 30 to 850 lb/ft² — p.38 · Average of ~3 lb/in² for a tenth of a second was enough — p.39 · "No calculations were submitted to substantiate the joints between the structural components" — p.9 · "This is all too casual an approach… a tiresome formality rather than an important safeguard" — p.10 · Designed for 24 lb/ft² (63 mph); 105 mph expected once in 60 years → 45 lb/ft², peaking 65 at the corners — pp.40–41, 43 · "The behaviour of the building… was inherent in its design" — p.61 · 4 dead, 17 injured — p.17 — Hansard, House of Commons, 6 November 1968 (report presented) → https://api.parliament.uk/historic-ha... — Hansard, House of Commons, 9 March 1970 (Building Regulations) → https://api.parliament.uk/historic-ha... CHAPTERS 0:00 The pilot light she turned off 1:10 The explosion was completely normal 2:24 A building with no skeleton 6:07 Six gaps, in order 9:21 The nut, and two things that are not the cause 12:34 Three pounds per square inch 16:18 And then they looked at the wind 18:13 What changed in 1970 20:29 Sources and what comes next IMAGE CREDITS — Ronan Point and the Clever Road blocks, 1979 and 1982 — Miles Glendinning, Tower Block UK archive, University of Edinburgh. CC BY 4.0. https://doi.org/10.7488/ds/6312 · https://doi.org/10.7488/ds/6316 — All diagrams original, generated from the figures in the Griffiths Report. — No images or text from the report itself are reproduced. AUDIO CREDITS — Sound effects via Pixabay (Content License, commercial use permitted, no attribution required): match strike, muffled explosion, falling debris. — Score: instrumental bed licensed for commercial use. #RonanPoint #engineeringdisaster #structuralfailure WATCH NEXT • The Hyatt Skywalk Was Never Strong Enough, Even as Drawn —    • The Hyatt Skywalk Was Never Strong Enough,...   • Silver Bridge: One Hidden Crack Was All It Took —    • Silver Bridge: One Hidden Crack Was All It...   • Every episode, in order —    • Collapse Mechanism — Every Episode   #forensicengineering #civilengineering #documentary