Per the article: There have been a number of similar episodes such as the Texas City Disaster in 1947, where more than 570 people died after a cargo ship laden with ammonium nitrate exploded.
Bet that brought a few fish to the surface!!!
>>> Bet that brought a few fish to the surface!!!
Huh?
I remember the Texas City explosions very well. I was an 11 year old 4th grade student in Beaumont, Texas at the time. I was in a classroom on the 3rd floor of our very old building. Our teacher was reading something to us at that moment. All of a sudden, the classroom windows started rattling. She looked up and said “rattle rattle rattle” and went back to reading.
Of course, we all learned later that day what caused our building to shake, though we were about 70 or 80 miles away.
Many years later, I was a student nurse at the John Sealy Hospital in Galveston. We had many patients still having plastic surgery done on their wounds from that explosion.....plastic surgery not being nearly as developed as it is today.
My father heard and felt that explosion in his high school in Houston.
There were actually two cargo ships carrying ammonium nitrate. On April 16, 1947, A French vessel the SS Grandcamp loaded with 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate to be turned into fertilizer. Docked at the Port of Texas City it erupted in flames, causing a massive explosion that killed approximately 576 people and flattened 1,000 buildings in the city. All of the city's firefighting equipment was destroyed in the blast and 26 firemen were killed. A second ship at the port, also carrying ammonium nitrate, caught fire in the blast and exploded 16 hours later. With the destruction of the city's fire-fighting equipment in the first blast, Texas City was helpless to contain the damage of the second blast.
It was the worst industrial accident in U.S. history.
On 21 September 1921 an explosion in a nitrogenous fertilizer plant near Oppau Germany involving some 4,500 tonnes of ammonium sulphonitrate fertilizer detonated creating a 90meter X 125meter crater, over 20meters deep. The official casualty report listed 561 deaths, 1,952 injured and 7,500 people left homeless. The explosion was heard in Munich, 275km from the plant. This was probably the largest non-nuclear explosion in history (excluding mother natures temper tantrums of course).
Regards,
GtG