The Purity Distilling Company of Boston, Massachusetts, was the site of an unusual disaster that claimed the lives of 21 people, injuring another 150.

A tank measuring 50 feet high with a 90-foot diameter contained molasses that was being stored at the facility before being shipped to a munitions plant. The tank was only a few years old, but people who lived around the facility claimed that it shuddered and groaned when being filled up with thick molasses.

Witnesses said that at approximately 12:30 p.m. on January 15, rivets began to shoot out of the tank with a sound that resembled machine gunfire. The molasses flooded out of the ruptured tank and out onto the streets, where it tipped a railcar, knocked buildings over and threw a truck into the harbor.

At the Boston and Worcester freight terminal, the river of molasses flowed through the windows and doors, trapping and killing workers there. Out on the streets, the molasses was waist-deep and covered people and animals trying to get free of the sticky mess.

Together with the Boston Police, soldiers from the US Army, Red Cross personnel, and over 100 cadets from the USS Nantucket ran to rescue the victims. A makeshift hospital was set up in a nearby building to help the injured. The search for victims continued for four days before the rescuers gave up; the casualties of the molasses flood washed up in the Boston Harbor months later.