Molasses

On January 15, 1919, the North End of Boston was flooded by 2 million gallons of molasses when a tank burst open. The 35 mph wave of molasses was two stories high, killing 21 and injuring 150. There were 3,000 witnesses who testified in the 6-year lawsuit against Boston. The smell of molasses remained for decades. It took over 87,000 man hours to clean up the aftermath (picture above).
"Molasses, waist deep, covered the street and swirled and bubbled about the wreckage. Here and there struggled a form — whether it was animal or human being was impossible to tell. Only an upheaval, a thrashing about in the sticky mass, showed where any life was.... Horses died like so many flies on sticky fly-paper. The more they struggled, the deeper in the mess they were ensnared. Human beings — men and women — suffered likewise."

Source: article by Edwards Park from Nov 1983 Smithsonian, "Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919," and here.

• Readers of my early blog may recognize this post from Oct 2007. I have re-posted this after being asked (and complying) to remove a source-link and remove a picture by two unrelated people. They said that I was "stealing bandwidth" and "playing havock with [their] visitor stats." Can someone please explain this to me?