A Brief History
On April 16, 1947, the SS Grandcamp, a French freighter carrying 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate blew up at the dock in Texas City, Texas, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history. Obviously, such a huge blast was a disaster, killing close to 600 people and injuring 5,000 more.
Digging Deeper
The giant blast set off explosions and fires in the surrounding area, causing further destruction and mayhem. A two ton anchor from the unlucky ship was hurled over a mile and a half from the scene! The larger, five ton anchor, was launched a half mile away. Every member of the local fire department was killed except a single survivor.
The “Texas City Disaster” is considered the worst industrial accident in US history, and is another of the maritime and naval “Oops moments” we have previously covered and another in a long list of accidental explosions. No cause for the blast was determined.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Minutaglio, Bill. City on Fire: The Explosion that Devastated a Texas Town and Ignited a Historic Legal Battle. University of Texas Press, 2014.
Stephens, Hugh. The Texas City Disaster, 1947. University of Texas Press, 1997.
The featured image in this article, a photograph of SS Wilson B. Keene, destroyed in the disaster’s second explosion, has been released into the public domain worldwide by its author, University of Houston.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.