More Evidence That Smoking Kills

(6 May 2004, Ukraine) Piling up live artillery is grueling work, so it
makes perfect sense that a group of soldiers would take a cigarette break
at lunchtime. The warehouse was filled with 92,000 tons of ammunition --
until the soldiers lit up their ciggies and inhaled deeply, ignoring
warnings that smoking can cause cancer. They flicked the butts away and
went back to work. The glowing embers of the tobacco butts acted like slow
fuses, which started a small fire that nobody noticed until it ignited a
chain reaction of massive explosions.

The explosions lasted for a week, tossing debris as far as 25 miles away,
destroying buildings in a two-mile radius, and forcing the evacuation of
thousands of nearby residents. Red-hot shrapnel set off additional fires in
nearby towns and ruptured a minor gas pipeline. Total damage from the smoke
break was estimated at $750 million.

Miraculously, only one of the soldiers at the arsenal died in the
disaster. Six soldiers were charged with "grossly neglecting the fire
safety rules and smoking on the ammunition site."