At 09:12, April 16, 1947, Texas City, USA, a French government-owned ship, GRANDCAMP, loaded with 2,100 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, caught fire and, while attempts were being made to put the fire out, the ship exploded.
The entire dock area was destroyed, along with a nearby chemical works, grain warehouses, and numerous oil and chemical storage tanks. Smaller explosions and fires were ignited by flying debris, not only in the port but throughout the city. Fragments of iron, parts of the ship's cargo, and dock equipment were hurled into businesses, houses, and public buildings.
A fifteen-foot tidal wave caused by the force of the explosion swept the dock area. The concussion of the explosion destroyed at least 1,000 residences and a second ship, also carrying ammonium nitrate, was ignited by the first explosion, which had killed twenty-six Texas City firemen and destroyed all of the city's fire-fighting equipment, leaving the city helpless in the wake of the second explosion.
The exact number of people killed will never be known but the best estimate is 576 dead, 398 of whom were identified, and 178 listed as missing.
At about 18.00, August 4, 2020, 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate that had been taken off a ship and stored in a warehouse in the Port of Beirut, exploded after a fire had broken out nearby. The sound of the explosion was heard in Cyprus, 150 miles away. Around 220 people were killed, and 7,000 injured. The warehouse was totally obliterated, and the explosion left a crater 124m in diameter and 40m deep. Up to 300,000 people were left homeless.
Just to emphasise the point, the largest explosion anywhere before the nuclear age occurred at 09:05 December 6, 1917, at the Port of Halifax, Nova Scotia, when a French munitions ship MONT BLANC, loaded with 2,300 tons of picric acid, 200 tons of TNT, 35 tons of high-octane gasoline, and 10 tons of gun cotton, exploded.
The explosion killed more than 1,800 people, injured another 9,000 and destroyed almost the entire north end of the city of Halifax, including more than 1,600 homes. The sound of the explosion was heard hundreds of miles away.
Some of you might be aware that another ship, RUBY, has been anchored off the Kent coast for several weeks now while loaded with 20,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, dangerously close, according to some MSM reports, to the wreck of a second world war Liberty ship carrying about 1,500 tonnes of live ammunition. RUBY has been reported to be Russian owned. Should we be worried?
Nope, not in the slightest. Forget all the MSM hysteria and rampant rubbish about the ship being a floating bomb, just waiting for Putin to push the button and detonate the ship with nuclear force.
And forget the rubbish about the WW2 wreck – it’s 36 miles away and nothing that could happen on RUBY could have the slightest effect. And, where she is anchored right now, about 15 miles off Margate, even if she did explode, using a 20 kiloton blast calculation, far higher than what is likely to happen, the thermal radiation blast radius in which 3rd degree burns would occur is only 1.91 km, and the light damage radius, in which windows would be broken, is 3.19 km.
There is nothing uncommon about a ship carrying ammonium nitrate, usually used as a fertiliser. At any one time there will be dozens of ships at sea loaded with the stuff, carrying hundreds of thousands of tonnes of it, coming in and out of port every day, all over the world. The hysteria around this ship is pathetic and appears to be driven by reports of her being Russian owned rather than anything else.
Reportedly, after leaving her load port, Murmansk, northern Russia bound for the Canary Islands, RUBY ran aground and damaged her hull and propeller and rudder. She called into the Norwegian port of Tromsø for temporary repairs, but was quickly ordered to leave by the Norwegian authorities. Under UN Treaties to which Norway is a signatory, a Coastal State is obliged to assist a ship in distress and offer a place of refuge, though Coastal States usually ignore this, usually because panicking politicians are afraid of bad publicity. Since leaving Tromsø RUBY has been escorted by a tug.
Her owners then arranged for her to go Klaipeda, Lithuania, for drydocking, but Denmark refused her passage through the Great Belt into the Baltic Sea. She was then directed to Malta for drydocking but had to anchor off Kent as she, or her escort tug, needed to re-fuel. Needless to say, the British authorities refused to offer a place of refuge, so she anchored just outside the 12-mile territorial water limit in international waters, and just outside the channel shipping lanes.
It is not clear what is preventing RUBY for leaving for Malta, but it is possible that Malta has also said that the vessel, which is registered in Malta and flies the Maltese flag, will not be allowed entry unless her cargo is discharged first, which is impossible as no country is prepared to allow the vessel into one of their ports to allow the cargo of ammonium nitrate to be taken off. This situation is preposterous but by no means uncommon.
There is nothing at all special about RUBY. I have been unable to confirm that she is Russian owned. She flies the Maltese flag, her owning company is registered in the Marshall Islands, and she in managed out of Dubai. She might be Russian owned, but I have seen no evidence of it. Not that it would make any difference is she were.
There are far more dangerous cargoes than ammonium nitrate, such as LNG, LPG and some chemicals, being carried in and out of ports, including British ports, every day and nobody objects. There are several ports in Britain and France that have remote berths where dangerous cargoes like ammonium nitrate are routinely discharged without incident. But ignorant politicians forced to get their snouts out of the trough by equally ignorant media types peddling sensationalism, put pressure on those competent to make rational decisions and ships like RUBY are left to wander the seas with nowhere to go.
This often results in a different disaster, like that of X-PRESS PEARL, a ship that caught fire in the Indian Ocean, was refused entry into ports in Oman, Iran, Pakistan and India, and which subsequently sank off Sri Lanka releasing toxic chemicals and billions of plastic pellets into the sea in what Sri Lanka labelled the worst environmental disaster in its history. (It always is.)