Poging GOUD - Vrij
The Day Bombay BLEW UP
Reader's Digest India
|April 2022
Seventy-eight years ago this month occurred a great explosion in Bombay harbour that killed hundreds and imperilled the city

APRIL 1985
Friday, 14 April 1944, was a pleasant spring day in Bombay, then a vital supply blaze for the planned invasion of Japan. The harbour was jammed with ships of every Allied flag. Western and Asian troops throng the city buying coloured silk, sarees, ivory elephants and incense sticks for souvenirs. In the dockside district, people were carrying on their everyday activities.
At 12:30 by the clock in the harbour tower, the dock workers stopped for lunch. On a Norwegian merchant ship, the Belray, Able Seaman Roy Hayward, going below, noticed what looked like a whisper of smoke coming from a ventilator of the Fort Stikine. This was a 7,200tonne cargo vessel, which lay in the adjoining dock. She had left Liverpool seven weeks earlier, loaded with ammunition and explosives, airplanes, stores and £2 million of worth of gold bars intended to help stabilize the rupee.
At 1:30 p.m. The dock workers returned to the Fort Stikine. As they entered Number Two hold, they saw smoke coming from the port side nearest the quay. The stevedores scrambled up from the hold shouting, “Fire!"
Men from a Bombay fire-brigade pump on the quay promptly ran with their hoses to the ship. Not until their section leader was on board, however, did he remember that, for a fire in a ship carrying explosives, his instructions were to sendan immediate Number Two alarm, which would call out a large force. With orders to dial 290, his sub-leader struggled back down the gangway, now crowded with dock workers pushing to get ashore, and dashed to a telephone. But the telephone had no dial. Confused, he ran 160 metres along the dockside, broke the glass of a fire alarm and rang the bell. Thus the fire brigade control room received only a normal call fortwo pumps. The hands of the harbour clock tower stood at 2:16 p.m.
Dit verhaal komt uit de April 2022-editie van Reader's Digest India.
Abonneer u op Magzter GOLD voor toegang tot duizenden zorgvuldig samengestelde premiumverhalen en meer dan 9000 tijdschriften en kranten.
Bent u al abonnee? Aanmelden
MEER VERHALEN VAN Reader's Digest India

Reader's Digest India
RD RECOMMENDS
HUMANS IN THE LOOP
4 mins
September 2025

Reader's Digest India
LIFE'S Like That
Take That!
1 mins
September 2025

Reader's Digest India
What Do ANIMALS FEEL?
IT IS NOT ONLY HUMANS WHO FEEL EMPATHY, SADNESS AND JOY. OTHER SPECIES ALSO APPEAR TO HAVE COMPLEX EMOTIONS
7 mins
September 2025

Reader's Digest India
News from the WORLD OF MEDICINE
Fermentable Fibre Works Like A Natural Ozempic
1 mins
September 2025

Reader's Digest India
LAUGHTER THE BEST Medicine
A man calls a family meeting to discuss an exceptionally high phone bill: Dad: “This is unacceptable, I don’t use the home phone, I use my work phone.”
2 mins
September 2025

Reader's Digest India
GOOD NEWS ABOUT BRAIN CANCER
An experimental new treatment makes tumours melt away
14 mins
September 2025

Reader's Digest India
ALL in a Day's WORK
Every year, emergency responders at E-Comm 911 in British Columbia share some of the less- than-urgent calls that they've fielded:
2 mins
September 2025

Reader's Digest India
To-Do List GOT YOU DOWN?
Understanding the psychology of goals can help tick things off—and keep you on track
3 mins
September 2025
Reader's Digest India
WHEN AFFIRMATIONS MEET EDUCATION
Self-help says manifest joy. Teaching says manifest patience, coffee, and an early retirement plan. This Teacher's Day, here are some positive mantras only educators could write.
1 min
September 2025

Reader's Digest India
TO MY UNKNOWN BENEFACTOR
Stories of nameless Good Samaritans that reminds us that even the smallest acts of compassion can never be forgotten
8 mins
September 2025
Translate
Change font size