The Flixborough disaster was an explosion at a chemical plant close to the village of Flixborough, England, on 1 June 1974. It killed 28 people and seriously injured 36 out of a total of only 72 people on site at the time; from the devastation on site it was clear that had the explosion happened in normal office hours the casualty figures could have been much higher. A contemporary campaigner on process safety wrote "the shock waves rattled the confidence of every chemical engineer in the country". The disaster involved (and may well have been caused by) a hasty modification. Mechanical engineering issues with the modification were overlooked by the managers (chemical engineers) who approved it, and the severity of the potential consequences of its failure was not appreciated. Flixborough led to a widespread public outcry over process plant safety.