12 October 1654: A normal Monday morning in the Delft. Painters in their studios, people working with looms and a man called Cornelis Soetens walks down a few steps to take a small sample from a gunpowder store.

 
The Netherlands had never heard an explosion like it. Ninety thousand pounds of gunpowder went up in five almost simultaneous thunderous blasts. It's reported that it could be heard as far away as the island of Texel, 150 kilometres distant. At the time it was dramatically claimed that a hundred thousand cannons pointed towards the city couldn't have done more damage.
 
Delft Thunderclap
A quarter of Delft was destroyed. At least a hundred people were killed and thousands wounded. It became known as the Delft Thunderclap but, in an age of deep religious conviction, some believed that the very gates of hell had opened up and God's wrath had rained down upon them. A protestant preacher blasted out at the city authorities. They'd given too much freedom to Catholics, he said.

The recriminations came later. What was needed first was a Herculean effort to remove the rubble and save those who were trapped under the debris. Only a few survived. A baby girl was rescued after 24 hours. She was still sitting in her high chair, holding an apple and smiling.

Unfortunate Artists
However, most weren't so lucky. Among the casualties was the young but brilliant painter Carel Fabritius. That same year he'd completed 'The Goldfinch', now one of the treasured works in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague.

"I am rather convinced that had he lived another two decades, he would have been as good and as famous as his teacher Rembrandt and his contemporary Vermeer," says the museum's director Frits du Parc. "It was a tragedy that he died at the age of 32."

The abiding image of the devastation, though, is provided by the painter Egbert van der Poel, whose son died in the explosion. He painted more than 20 canvases, almost all identical. A dead body lies in the foreground whilst others are picked from the ground, limp but possibly still alive. In the background the city lies in ruins. These indelible images recreate the horror and fear that must have swept through Delft and had people believing they were experiencing the end of the world.

The Day the World Came to an End was produced by Chris Chambers. The documentary was originally broadcast in October 2004 to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the disaster.