Saturday afternoon May 13,2000 a major fireworks incident occurred at the company S.E.
Fireworks in the city of Enschede, the Netherlands. Twenty - two people were killed and more
than seven hundred were injured. Within a radius of hundreds of meters houses were destroyed
by the blast and debris generated by the explosions and burnt because of the scattered fireworks.
The possible causes, safety regulations and safety control were investigated. By order of the
Public Prosecutor the Netherlands Forensic Science Institute (NFI) and TNO Prins Maurits
Laboratory (TNO - PML) performed the forensic and technical investigations into the
reconstruction and the cause of this disaster.
Within an hour the incident developed from a moderate fire and some initiated fireworks in
one of the buildings into a series of three explosions of increasing violence. Many people witnessed
the accident (at distance) and numerous video recordings from different angles were made.
After the disaster an extensive investigation was started. The observed explosion effects, the
inventory of the damage in the area and all the forensic evidence were analysed. They form the
basis for the reconstruction of the disaster. This will be presented in the first paper. Scenarios
for possible causes of each of the events were developed and analysed. The second paper on the
firework disaster in Enschede focuses on the chain of events and the lessons that have to be
learned from this disaster, Weerheijm and De Bruyn7).
Explosion ; fire ; accident ; damage analysis ; forensics ; fireworks ; safety regulations ; bulk storage ; dangerous goods ; transport classification.