Saturday night, a bomb set up near a dumpster exploded, injuring 29 people in the Chelsea neighborhood in New York. A few minutes before this happened, a second suspicious device was found a few blocks down the street. The second device located down the street from the explosion was a pressure cooker, which was connected to a cell phone through dark colored wiring.
Pressure cookers were also used as explosive devices in the Boston Marathon that injured more than 260 people and killed 3. However, this wasn't even close to one of the deadliest pressure cooker bomb attacks. In July 2006, Mumbai, India suffered a loss of 209 civilians and injured 700 more due to train bombings using pressure cookers.
If you're anything like me, these types of incidents leave your mind wondering hundreds of questions. The most prominent question I've had this weekend is: what is a pressure cooker and why are they so often used as bombs?
Pressure cookers are airtight pots in which food can be cooked quickly under steam pressure. All pressure cookers essentially have the same three components: a pressure regulator, a vent pipe, and a sealing ring. Because they are a relatively common cooking utensil, the pressure cooker is often overlooked when officers search vehicles, residences or merchandise crossing the border.They become an improvised explosive device by inserting some type of explosive material into a pressure cooker and attaching a blasting cap into the cover of the cooker.
