Maritime Lawsuit Attorneys

Shipping Disasters: The Bombay Docks Explosion

In April of 1944, World War II was raging on and the Japanese were advancing quickly on India and Burma. The SS Fort Stikine, a British ship, was docked at the Victoria Dock of Bombay (now Mumbai) when she exploded.

The ship was a 7,142 gross ton freighter that was built in 1942. The ship was constructed at Prince Rupert in British Colombia as part of a lend-lease agreement. On April 12th, she arrived in Bombay with a full cargo hold. Within this cargo hold she carried explosives, munitions, Spitfires (a small, British, single-sea fighter plane), raw cotton bales, oil barrels, timber, scrap iron, and gold bullion. One of the ship’s officers described the cargo as being “just about everything that will either burn up or blow up.”

On the morning of the 14th of April, the ship was still docked at Victoria Dock awaiting unloading. Around 2 in the afternoon, the crew of the ship was alerted that there was a fire on board. The crew, as well as numerous shore fire crews, immediately attempted to put the fire out. Unfortunately, they were unable to do so. Just before 4 in the afternoon, the order was given to abandon ship. Just after 4, the ship underwent the first of two explosions. The two explosions together split the ship in half and broke windows up to 12 kilometers away.

The explosions the ship experienced were powerful enough to be recorded by a seismograph. It took 3 days to bring the fire under control. Once that was done, 8,000 people worked for 7 months to remove 500,000 tons of debris and get the docks back in working order.

The official death toll for the event was 740 people. Of those, 476 were military personnel. 1,800 people were injured by the event and 27 ships were sunk.

If you have been injured at sea, contact the maritime injury lawyers of Williams Kherkher at 1-800-220-9341 to discuss your case and to determine your legal options.