The Day it rained Gold in Bombay...


On April 14, 1944, the British Liberty freighter "Fort Stikine" lies in the port of Bombay (today: Mumbai), waiting to be unloaded...:



The ship had left the port of Birkenhead on February 24 and, after stops in Gibraltar and Port Said, moored in Bombay on April 12. His cargo consists of explosives and ammunition, Supermarine Spitfire fighter planes, cotton balls, oil in barrels, wood, scrap iron and 124 12.73 kg bars of gold valued at the time between one and two million pounds sterling.



On the afternoon of April 14, 1944, a fire broke out in hold 2, today it is believed that someone smoked illegally.

At around 2 p.m., the crew became aware of the fire and began to fight the fire together with the harbor fire brigade and fire boats.

After around 900 tons of extinguishing water had been pumped into the ship without being able to contain the fire, the order to leave the ship was given at 3:50 p.m.

Sixteen minutes later, the Fort Stikine exploded, breaking in two parts.





The detonation shattered panes of glass within a radius of about twelve kilometers and was recorded by seismographs at the Colaba Observatory in the city.

The area around the explosion site was set on fire within a radius of around 800 meters, and eleven ships in the port sank as a result of the explosion. During the following initial measures to combat the disaster, another explosion occurred at Fort Stikine at 4:34 p.m.

The debris of the propeller was found several kilometers from the port in the courtyard of St. Xaviers School...:



The fire in Bombay lasted three days and, according to official figures, killed 740 people and injured around 1,800 (unofficial estimates were far higher numbers).

27 ships were sunk or badly damaged in Victoria Dock and the neighboring Prince’s Dock...:







After the fire was extinguished, it took around 8,000 emergency services seven months to clear around half a million tons of rubble.







Until the 1970s, gold bars were repeatedly found in the port basin area in which the Fort Stikine exploded.





The Mumbai Fire Department erected a memorial at their headquarters to commemorate the "Bombay Explosion"...:

"Iceberg Ahead!"


On April 14, 1912, at about 11:40 p.m. the R.M.S. Titanic in the North Atlantic collides with an iceberg. The ship of the White Star Line under Captain Edward John Smith sinks within a few hours, 1,514 people are killed.

















Please excuse me for making it brief here, but so much has been written about it ...