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Mixers were kept in a semi-underground concrete building that was designed to resist the disruptive effects of an accidental deflagration. A five-meter layer of earth covered the roof, which was about one meter thick, and partially absorbed the energy of the shock wave that was produced by the explosion before finding a way out.
Holes in the roof of the adjacent galleries were provided to help to direct the energy of the wave outside the building.
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At the end of each cycle, each machine produced about 280 Kg of dynamite paste that was then used for cartridges.
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The vibration and shock sensitive chemicals to be mixed were carried to the mixers by hand (to avoid the vibrations of carts) by women, preferably widows.
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Accidents happened, sometimes. When the plant was dismissed, in 1965, the death count was of 91 people. And almost three major explosions occurred, in 1890, 1900 and 1961. In 1900 some window glasses broke in Turin, 30 kilometers away.
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Everything in the construction is built thinking to the containment of a blast wave. No sharp edges, around here...
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The same women (preferably widows) were employed to extrude and cut the dynamite paste after having been mixed. In those small 'cutting cottages', deeply set between thick cement walls, linked by underground passageways and narrow corridors, everything was made of wood... for two reasons: first, the chance of producing sparks was reduced to a minimum. Second, wood splinters (in case of deflagration) are less destructive than concrete.
Also the knife was a wooden one. And they were barefoot.
No space for jokes and laughters... a good worker is an alive one.
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This and the next two images are of the same mixing room… the mixer and the basement simply disappeared, in 1961. Notice in the last photo how the mixer, vaporizing during the explosion, 'protected' the wall immediately behind...
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After half a century the whole area (a contained one, about 50 square meters) seems to have been bombed (well, obviously...)
All the windows of Avigliana broke for the violence of the explosion, that propagated to a warehouse (existing no more) with 1800 Kg of cartridges.
13 people in the factory died.
Given the danger of the process (and an easily boycotted one, simply inserting extraneous objects in the paste, producing sparks...) in 1952 a remote control system was introduced. It consisted in a televion control, and represented a great technical innovation in those times. After loading the mixers, the workers left the site and monitored the process through four monitors.
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At the beginning of the 1950's cartridge-making developed and automatic, remote-controlled machinery was introduced, meaning that the actual presence of personnel was no longer necessary. The cartridge-making machinery was loaded manually, after which the operators left the area and controlled operations from a distance. Operations were followed using a system of three mirrors which reflected the image of the machine so the operator could see it. The operator approached the machine only when the load was finished, to set up a new cycle.
You are looking through the first (a bit broken) mirror, to the roof; if you look carefully, you can distinguish the other two mirrors... the red alignment marks surrounded the machine.
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During the Forties the whole perimeter of the factory had been electrically illuminated for security and surveillance purposes... big news, for those times.
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