On August 7, 1956, seven army ammunition trucks exploded in Cali, Colombia, killing over 1,000 people and injuring thousands more. The cause of the blasts is still unknown. The day before, 20 trucks loaded with dynamite left the Colombian city of Buenaventura. After stopping in Cali, 13 continued toward Bogota, the nation’s capital, while the remaining seven, bound for other locations, were parked overnight in downtown Cali.
In the early morning, an explosion rocked the San Nicolás neighborhood, between Carreras 1 and 8 and Calles 25 and 26, where the old Pacific Railway station stood. Six trucks, which had traveled from Buenaventura and been moved from the Pichincha Battalion, were parked there when the blast occurred. The explosion wiped out 41 city blocks, leaving a massive crater 50 meters wide and 25 meters deep. The shockwave destroyed buildings, homes, and businesses, including the Belmonte market square, killing around 1,300 people and injuring 4,000. Six neighborhoods…San Nicolás, El Porvenir, El Hoyo, El Piloto, Fátima, and Jorge Isaacs…were all impacted, but still exist today.
The blast was recorded as a 4.3 magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale, and besides the shaking, the sound of the explosion could be heard as far away as Buga, Palmira, Santander de Quilichao, Caloto, and Jamundí. At the time, several theories circulated about the cause of the explosion: some believed the trucks had overheated, others thought a soldier’s weapon had gone off by accident. The most widely accepted explanation is that a man smoking nearby tossed a lit cigarette too close to one of the trucks, setting off a chain reaction. The blast was so powerful it even tore open many graves in the city’s central cemetery.
The disaster happened during President Gustavo Rojas Pinilla’s administration, and he 
blamed the political opposition, which had just signed the Benidorm Pact (later leading to the creation of the National Front). With the country split between the traditional Liberal and Conservative parties, the tragedy quickly became politicized, especially since Cali was viewed as strongly opposed to the government. President Rojas Pinilla publicly accused terrorists of causing the disaster, but no evidence was ever found to prove the explosion was intentional.
