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Halloween Inferno: How 500 Pounds of Propane Turned a Coliseum Graveyard
Halloween Inferno: How 500 Pounds of Propane Turned a Coliseum Graveyard
A public entertainment night became a sealed danger: 500 pounds of propane sat under the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum for about ten years, and on October 31, 1963 a single faulty valve and an electric popcorn warmer turned that stored fuel into a 40-foot fireball that left an initial death toll of 54 and a final count of 81. How could tanks unpermitted and unseen by inspectors lie beneath a crowd of 4,327 for a decade without anyone stopping the hazard?
In this episode, we tell how the Halloween performance, the…
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