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Eclipse and the Sierra Leone explosion

 

Constellations Scorpion and Ara, the Altar



At least 98 people have died after a massive explosion when a fuel tanker collided with a lorry in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown. Fuel spilled before igniting and the resulting inferno engulfed bystanders and vehicles at a busy junction. Footage broadcast by local media outlets showed badly charred bodies in the streets surrounding the tanker.  The explosion is believed to have happened at a junction outside the busy Choithram Supermarket in the densely populated Wellington suburb in the east of the city at around 22:00 GMT on Friday. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-59188753


Eclipses are powerful especially when they occur close to the horizon or meridian. At Freetown, the upcoming solar eclipse [12sa] is  rising on the Ascendant and along with Mercury (vehicle) square Neptune (oil) it straddles the horizon.  The eclipse [12sa] is conjunct the star Antares, alpha Scorpi which has been associated with great fires. In addition Mercury and the Ascendant are amid stars of Arae in the Altar’s flames. About these stars Diana Rosenberg writes:

There were transits to these stars in 1812 when Moscow burned during Napolean’s invasion of Russia; at the Great New York City fire of 1835 in Manhattan’s financial district; at the 1876 Brooklyn Theatre fire; at the 1917 Halifax harbor disaster; at a fire in Madrid’s Novedades Theatre; at the 1946 Atlanta, GA, Winecoff Hotel fire; at the 1986 explosion and fire at the Dumont Plaza Hotel, San Juan, Puerto Rico; at a spectacular Newark, NJ fire and several others.

For stars that conjoin Neptune on the IC, Diana Rosenberg  lists “fires, explosions and oil spills”

Massive oil tanker Torrey Canyon hit a reef off Cornwall in March 1967, spilling 120,000 gallons of crude one week after a New Moon here;  and there was New Moon here one week before oil tanker Amoco Cadiz off Brittany in May 1978, spilling 68.7 million gallons of crude. This was Jupiter in April 2010 when Gulf of Mexico, BP oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank causing a massive eruption of crude from its base.  These events devastated shorelines, killed hundreds of thousands of sea creatures and birds and ruined fisheries.


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