Raufoss Ammunisjonsfabrikker was a Norwegian company based at

Raufoss Raufoss is a town in Vestre Toten Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The town is the administrative centre of the municipality. It is located about south of the larger town of Gjøvik. The town is located along the municipal border wi ...

, established in 1896 as ''Rødfoss Patronfabrik''. Initially the company manufactured

ammunition Ammunition, also known as ammo, is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. The term includes both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines), and the component parts of oth ...

, and later also other products, such as aluminium parts to the

automotive industry The automotive industry comprises a wide range of company, companies and organizations involved in the design, Business development, development, manufacturing, marketing, selling, Maintenance, repairing, and Custom car, modification of motor ve ...

. Until 1948 the company was a subordinate to the Norwegian Ministry of Defence. In the 1990s the automobile division was split off as ''Raufoss Automotive'' and eventually taken over by

Norsk Hydro Norsk Hydro ASA (often referred to as just ''Hydro'') is a Norway, Norwegian aluminium and renewable energy company, headquartered in Oslo. It is one of the largest aluminium companies worldwide. It has operations in some 50 countries around th ...

. In 1998 the ammunition division was merged with the Swedish company Celsius and the Finnish company Patria, forming the new company

Nammo Nammo, short for Nordic Ammunition Company, is a Norwegian- Finnish aerospace and defence group specialized in production of ammunition, rocket engines and space applications. The company has subsidiaries in Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Sw ...

1956 explosion

In the morning of 19 October 1956 an explosion occurred underground in the factory in hall 15. This hall was over 100 metres long where people filled cartridges with gunpowder. At the time of the explosion, there were around 100 people in the hall. Due to the explosion the roof was torn apart, the hall collapsed and people were buried in debris. Due to the explosion five people died and at least 21 people were hospitalized. Four were seriously injured. According to a doctor they were so badly injured that they had difficulties to determine whether they were still alive. The rescue work was seriously hampered because due to the explosion all lights had gone out in the whole underground factory. The explosion has been listed by Dutch newspaper '' Het Huisgezin'' as one of the main international disasters of 1956.

References

Formerly government-owned companies of Norway Defunct companies of Norway Companies based in Innlandet Manufacturing companies established in 1896 Vestre Toten Ammunition manufacturers Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1998 1998 disestablishments in Norway Norwegian companies established in 1896 {{Norway-company-stub