I only learnt about this disaster today. Approximately 600 people died.

The 1947 Texas City disaster was an industrial accident that occurred on April 16, 1947, in the port of Texas City, Texas, United States, located in Galveston Bay. It was the deadliest industrial accident in U.S. history and one of history’s largest non-nuclear explosions.

The explosion was triggered by a mid-morning fire on board the French-registered vessel SS Grandcamp (docked at port), which detonated her cargo of about 2,300 tons (about 2,100 metric tons) of ammonium nitrate.^[1] This started a chain reaction of fires and explosions aboard other ships and in nearby oil-storage facilities, ultimately killing at least 581 people, including all but one member of Texas City’s volunteer fire department.