List of accidents and incidents involving transport or storage of ammunition

Accidents and incidents involving transport or storage of ammunition include:

• 1634 Valletta explosion, Malta
• An Ottoman ammunition dump inside the Parthenon was ignited by Venetian bombardment in 1687
• 1806 Birgu polverista explosion, Malta
• Leiden gunpowder disaster, in 1807 a ship carrying 17,760 kg of gunpowder blew up in the Dutch town of Leiden.
• Siege of Almeida (1810), a chance shell ignited a line of black powder which set off a chain reaction in the magazine
• Negro Fort, a British-built fort on the Apalachicola River, occupied by fugitive slaves and Choctaws, was destroyed in 1816 when a hot-shot fired by a US gunboat landed in the fort's magazine.
• City Point, Virginia, Union army supply depot sabotaged in 1864 by Confederate Secret Service
• USS Maine, in Havana harbor in 1898 (origin of explosion is disputed)
• Black Tom explosion, 1916 act of sabotage on American ammunition supplies by German agents during World War I
• Kingsland explosion, American munitions factory in 1917
• Halifax Explosion, 1917 ammunition ship explosion that killed over 1,600 people
• Morgan Depot Explosion, American munitions factory in 1918
• Pollepel Island, August 1920 Explosion at Bannerman's Island Arsenal
• Dublin Four Courts explosion 1922 explosion of munitions stored by the anti-Treaty IRA in the Four Courts building in Dublin, which destroyed much of Ireland's pre-1921 public records.
• Lake Denmark explosion, July 10 1926 detonation of millions of pounds of stored explosives at Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey
• Smederevo Fortress explosion, the Wehrmacht stockpile of captured ammunition and gasoline at Smederevo Fortress exploded due to unknown reasons
• Joliet Army Ammunition Plant explosion, a 1942 explosion that was felt 100 miles away
• Air raid on Bari, a port disaster in Italy in 1943
• SS El Estero, ammunition ship that caught fire in New York Harbor in 1943
• Naval Station Norfolk, September 17, 1943 accidental truckload explosion of 24 aerial depth charges, killing 40 and injuring 386^[1]
• Naval Weapons Station Yorktown VA November 1943 explosion – 6 killed^[2]
• USS Turner, 1943 naval explosion in Lower New York Bay
• Bombay Explosion (1944), explosion on a ship in Bombay Harbour
• SS Paul Hamilton, 20 April 1944, a Liberty ship carrying cargo of high explosives and bombs, sunk by Luftwaffe
• Soham rail disaster, 2 June 1944, fire and subsequent explosion of a freight wagon carrying high explosives.
• West Loch disaster, ammunition explosion in Pearl Harbor, two months before Port Chicago
• Port Chicago disaster, a deadly munitions explosion that occurred in 1944, at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in California
• Hastings Naval Ammunition Depot, Nebraska, 27 September 1944 munitions explosions causing nine deaths and extensive damage.
• USS Mount Hood, 10 November 1944 explosion of an ammunition ship at Seeadler Harbor, 432 killed
• RAF Fauld explosion, UK underground munitions storage depot in 1944, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history
• SS John Burke, a Liberty ship carrying ammunition, was hit by a kamikaze pilot and disintegrated in an enormous explosion on December 28, 1944.
• USS Serpens, 29 January 1945 explosion of an ammunition ship off Lunga Point, Guadalcanal. US Coast Guard-crewed. 254 killed (196 USCG, 57 US Army, and 1 US Public Health Service physician)
• SS Charles Henderson, unloading accident in Bari, Italy, 9 April 1945
• SS Canada Victory, Logan Victory and Hobbs Victory each with 6,000 pounds of ammunition sank after kamikaze attacks caused an explosion near Okinawa in 1945.
• SS Green Hill Park, 1945 incident in Vancouver similar to El Estero
• Cádiz Explosion, 18 August 1947, in mines and torpedoes depot, ca. 150 killed and large part of the city destroyed
• Prüm, Germany, 15 July 1949, a French Army depot with 500 tons of ammunition explodes, 12 killed
• South Amboy powder pier explosion, New Jersey, 1950
• Explosion of RFA Bedenham, 27 April 1951 explosion of an ammunition ship in the Port of Gibraltar
• Cali explosion, 1956 explosion of seven army ammunition trucks loaded with 1053 boxes of dynamite, which were parked overnight in Cali, Colombia.
• La Coubre explosion, 1960 explosion of a French freighter carrying grenades and munitions, in the harbour of Havana, Cuba.
• SS Kielce, shipwreck near Folkestone containing explosives that detonated during salvage in 1967
• 1973 Roseville Yard Disaster, high-explosive aircraft ammunition and ordnance in military boxcars in a Southern Pacific train consist in its Roseville, California railyard.
• Severomorsk Disaster, 13–17 May 1984, munitions fire at a Soviet naval base, 200–300 killed
• 2008 Gërdec explosions, Albania
• Evangelos Florakis Naval Base explosion, Cyprus, 2011
• 2021 Bata explosions, Equatorial Guinea
• SS Richard Montgomery, explosive-filled Liberty ship wreck, off the UK's Kent coast (ongoing potential)

See also[]

• List of ammonium nitrate disasters
• Largest artificial non-nuclear explosions
• List of accidents and disasters by death toll: Explosions

References[]