A look back at local, national and world events through Deseret News archives.
On April 16, 1947, the French cargo ship Grandcamp, carrying over 2,000 tons of ammonium nitrate, blew up in the harbor in Texas City, Texas.
A nearby ship, the High Flyer, which was carrying ammonium nitrate and sulfur, caught fire and exploded the following day.
The combined blasts and fires killed nearly 600 people and injured 5,000 in the worst industrial accident in U.S. history.
The Texas City disaster at Galveston Bay was one of history’s largest nonnuclear explosions. It was reported at the time that 27 of the 28 members of the Texas City fire department who responded died in the blasts.
It brought to mind the Dec. 6, 1917, incident when more than 1,700 people were killed when an explosives-laden French cargo ship, the Mont Blanc, collided with the Norwegian vessel Imo at the harbor in Halifax, Nova Scotia, setting off a blast that devastated the Canadian city.
Coverage in the Deseret News was extensive, and wire service photos told much of the story.
How it started
A mid-morning fire started on board the SS Grandcamp, which was docked in the port, and detonated her cargo, starting a chain reaction of additional fires and explosions in other ships and nearby oil-storage facilities.
According to newspaper accounts, more than 5,000 people were injured, over 500 homes were destroyed and hundreds damaged, and some 2,000 were left homeless. The seaport was destroyed, and many businesses were flattened or burned.
Over 1,100 vehicles were damaged and 362 freight cars were obliterated; the property damage was estimated at $100 million (which was equivalent to $1.2 billion in 2020).
What happened after that
The disaster triggered the first-ever class action lawsuit against the United States government, under the recently enacted Federal Tort Claims Act on behalf of 8,485 victims.
On April 13, 1950, a Texas District Court found the United States responsible for a litany of negligent acts of omission and commission by 168 named agencies and their representatives, in the manufacture, packaging and labeling of ammonium nitrate. This was further compounded by errors in transport, storage, loading, fire prevention and fire suppression, all of which led to the explosions and the subsequent carnage.
Here are some stories from Deseret News archives detailing tragic explosions through the years:
“Worst U.S. refinery blast in 15 years has killed 15