SHIP BLOWS UP IN AMERICAN PORT

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25162, 18 April 1947, Page 7

SHIP BLOWS UP IN AMERICAN PORT

Fires Spread Through Dock Area

1200 BELIEVED DEAD; 3500 INJURED

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10.45 p.m.) NEW YORK, April 16. It is unofficially estimated that some 1200 persons died to-day m Texas City on the Gulf of Mexico, when the French ship Grand Camp blew up in the harbour. The explosion set off a number of explosions and fires along the dock area. The estimate of 1200 dead was given by the Highway Department s district engineer at Houston, who is in charge of the emergency crews clearing the debris and searching for bodies in the devastated area. The chaos in the wake of the blast made it impossible for the authorities even to begin counting the casualties, but it is believed that the injured may reach 3500. Buildings were still burning fiercely in many parts of the town this evening, and wounded were wandering dazedly through what remains of the city. A rectangle roughly a mile long and half a mile wide along the waterfront is a mass of twisted steel structures and charred debris.

Three hundred workers’ houses near the harbour area were completely destroyed.

The Grand Camp (formerly the Benjamin R. Curtis) was sold to a French line last year. The ship was fully loaded with ammonium nitrate fertiliser and cotton. It is believed that two other ships blew up, but the fires raging along two miles of the waterfront prevent confirmation.

The latest reports say that two oil refineries and 50 oil tanks along the waterfront are on fire. Firemen to-night had given up their attempts to fight the fires in the central area of the explosion. “The Monsanto plant simply doesn’t exist any more,” Texas City railway officials told reporters. Many of the dead were working in the Monsanto chemical plant, which the Government built during the war at a cost of 19,000,000 dollars. It covered 30 acres.