Industrial and accidental explosions that killed 200 or more people since 1900

Map of 13 locations · Worldwide

Industrial and accidental explosions from the twentieth century onward in which at least two hundred people were killed: ships loaded with munitions or fertiliser, fertiliser silos, fuel pipelines, gas terminals and a market district. Each entry is drawn from contemporary reporting and from the records kept by the companies, agencies and newspapers that documented the event, and several of the death tolls and causes were disputed between those accounts. All of these are historical events, set down in date order. The set follows the explosions section of Wikipedia's list of accidents and disasters by death toll, read and transcribed by hand at a threshold of 200 deaths, so it is a curator's reading of that record rather than a database query.

Places in this collection

  • 2001 Mesa Redonda fire — A firework set off at the Mesa Redonda market district in central Lima started a fire that spread across four blocks, with civil defence st…
  • 1998 Jesse pipeline explosion — A 16 inch petrol pipeline linking the Warri refinery to Kaduna exploded at Atiegwo, in the Idjerhe clan of Ethiope West in Delta State, sou…
  • 1992 Guadalajara explosions — Residents of a working-class neighbourhood had noticed a foul smell in the air for three days before dozens of underground explosions tore…
  • 1984 San Juanico disaster — At approximately 05:35 hours a major fire and a series of catastrophic explosions ran through the LPG terminal at San Juan Ixhuatepec, on t…
  • 1984 Vila Socó pipeline fire, Cubatão — A rusty pipeline belonging to Petrobras, running beneath Vila Socó, a favela of almost 6,000 residents on the outskirts of Cubatão, burst a…
  • 1978 Los Alfaques disaster — At 3pm on 11 July a road tanker loaded with 43 tonnes of propane left the road bordering the Los Alfaques campsite on the Spanish Mediterra…
  • 1947 Texas City disaster — Residents of the industrial port on the Gulf Coast watched smoke rise from a moored cargo ship before the French vessel SS Grandcamp, carry…
  • 1945 SS Charles Henderson explosion at Bari — The S.S. Charles Henderson, holding about 2,300 tons of bombs, detonated while her cargo was being discharged at her berth in the Italian p…
  • 1944 Port Chicago disaster — An ammunition ship exploded while being loaded at Port Chicago, California, a wartime naval loading point on the Sacramento River delta. Hi…
  • 1944 Bombay Docks explosion — On the afternoon of 14 April the freighter Fort Stikine, of 7,142 tons, blew apart at the eastern docks of Bombay, splitting in half and hu…
  • 1937 New London School explosion — Odourless natural gas leaked into the basement of the school at New London, in Rusk County, Texas, and ignited with minutes left in the sch…
  • 1921 Oppau explosion — Two blasts in quick succession at 7:32 a.m. shook the Ludwigshafen and Mannheim area when a tower silo holding 4,500 tonnes of mixed ammoni…
  • 1917 Halifax Explosion — The French cargo vessel SS Mont-Blanc, loaded with explosives, collided with the Norwegian SS Imo in the Narrows, the channel linking Bedfo…

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