On June 3, 1989, a major railway accident occurred in the Chelyabinsk region. The tragedy, which happened 11 km from the city of Asha (Chelyabinsk region), was caused by a gas leak from the Siberia – Ural – Volga pipeline passing nearby. Approximately three hours before the catastrophe, instruments indicated a drop in pressure in the pipeline. However, instead of searching for the leak, the duty personnel merely increased the gas supply to restore the pressure. As a result, a significant amount of propane, butane, and other highly flammable substances leaked through a meter-long crack in the pipe and accumulated in a lowland area in the form of a "gas lake." Engineers of passing trains warned the train dispatcher that there was a high concentration of gas in the area, but this was ignored. On June 3, 1989, at 23:15 Moscow time, during the passage of the opposite passenger trains "Novosibirsk – Adler" and "Adler – Novosibirsk," a gas cloud exploded, and a giant fire broke out. The explosion was so powerful that several kilometers from its epicenter, all the windows at the central farm of the "Red Dawn" collective farm were blown out. The railway tracks were twisted into unimaginable loops. The shockwave derailed 11 cars, 7 of which were completely burned. The remaining 26 cars burned on the outside and were gutted on the inside. The fire claimed the lives of 575 people, 623 suffered severe burns, and were left disabled for life. The train heading to Adler included two cars with children traveling to a pioneer camp. Most of them burned. During the investigation, the investigative team determined that the cause of the accident was the poor execution of the "bypass tap" on the pipeline from Nizhnevartovsk to Ufa. The court proceedings related to the accident lasted six years. Ten officials, mainly builders, were held accountable. In 1992, an eight-meter memorial was erected at the site of the tragedy. Annual mourning rallies are held at the monument to the victims of the disaster.