India, Oct. 17 -- Imagine a wave of beer crashing through a neighbourhood, smashing into homes and burying people under rubble. On October 17, 1814, London witnessed precisely such a disaster.

A giant beer vat burst at a brewery, unleashing thousands of barrels of porter into nearby streets. The incident, remembered as the London Beer Flood, killed eight people and became one of the strangest industrial disasters in British history.

The disaster unfolded at Meux & Co's Horse Shoe Brewery, near the junction of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street, in central London. The brewery stood close to St Giles, a densely populated and impoverished neighbourhood where many families lived in cramped homes and basement rooms.

At the centre of the...