Bombay Explosion (1944)
Smoke billowing out of Harbour
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| Time | 16:15 IST (10:45 UTC) |
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| Date | 14 April 1944 |
| Location | Victoria Dock, Bombay, British India |
| Coordinates | 18°57′10″N 72°50′42″E / 18.952777°N 72.844977°ECoordinates: 18°57′10″N 72°50′42″E / 18.952777°N 72.844977°E |
| Cause | ship fire |
| 800+ dead | |
| 3,000 injured | |
The Bombay Explosion (or Bombay Docks Explosion) occurred on 14 April 1944, in the Victoria Dock of Bombay (now Mumbai) when the freighter SS Fort Stikine carrying a mixed cargo of cotton bales, gold, and ammunition including around 1,400 tons of explosives, caught fire and was destroyed in two giant blasts, scattering debris, sinking surrounding ships and setting fire to the area, killing around 800 to 1300 people. Some 80,000 people were made homeless and seventy-one firemen lost their lives in the aftermath.
The SS Fort Stikine was a 7,142 gross register ton freighter built in 1942 in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, under a lend-lease agreement, and was named after Fort Stikine, a former outpost of the Hudson's Bay Company located at what is now Wrangell, Alaska.
Sailing from Birkenhead on 24 February via Gibraltar, Port Said and Karachi, she arrived at Bombay on 12 April 1944. Her cargo included 1,395 tons of explosives including 238 tons of sensitive "A" explosives, torpedoes, mines, shells, munitions, Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft, raw cotton bales, barrels of oil, timber, scrap iron and approximately £890,000 of gold bullion in bars in 31 crates. The 87,000 bales of cotton and lubricating oil were loaded at Karachi and the ship's captain, Alexander James Naismith, recorded his protest about such a "mixture" of cargo. The transportation of cotton through the sea route was inevitable for the merchants, as transporting cotton by rail from Punjab and Sindh to Bombay was banned at that time. Naismith, who lost his life in the explosion, also described the cargo as "just about everything that will either burn or blow up." The vessel had berthed and was still awaiting unloading on 14 April, after 48 hours of berthing.
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Wikipedia