The Texas City Explosion – or ‘Disaster’ – refers to a chain of chemical reactions that caused a number of devastating explosions! These tragic events unfolded on April 16th, 1947 – when a fire ignited a shipment of ‘ammonium nitrate’ stored on a cargo vessel moored in Texas City’s harbour of Galveston Bay! The explosion killed about 600 people and injured more than 3,500! The ship’s anchor was propelled over 1.6 miles away and a vast area of Texas resembled the destroyed terrain of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – after the US dropping of two Atomic Bombs during late 1945! The devastation was so widespread that it wiped-out the local Fire Brigade and destroyed all ‘four’ of its Fire Engines! Although there have been many (and numerous) sinister ‘nuclear’ accidents throughout US history – this explosion is considered one of the worst in history (similar to the Beirut explosion of 2020) and more initially destructive than the Chernobyl nuclear accident that occured in the USSR during 1986!
