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As slow as molasses in January. There was one memorable exception to that truism. And it was a deadly one. Forty minutes past noon on 15 January 1919, a giant wave of molasses raced through Boston. The unseasonably warm temperature (46 degrees) was the final stress needed to cause a gigantic, filled-to-capacity tank to burst. 2,320,000 gallons (14,000 tons) of molasses swept through the streets, causing death and destruction. Eyewitness reports tell of a 30-foot wall of goo that smashed buildings and tossed horses, wagons and pool tables about as if they were nothing. Twenty-one people were killed by the brown tidal wave, and 150 more were injured. The chaos and destruction were amplified — and rescue efforts were hampered — by the stickiness of the molasses. Those persons attempting to aid others all too often found themselves mired fast in the goo. The day after the disaster, the New York Times reported: In November 2016, new findings about the Great Molasses Flood were presented at the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics in Portland: Boston is not a city that forgets anything easily. There are those who claim that on a hot summer day in the North End, you can still smell the molasses.
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