The freighter SS Fort Stinkine which is a cargo ship arrived at Bombay on Friday, 12 April, 1944 No one in the Dock area was aware about the dangerous cargo which she was carrying. Normally a red flag has to be flagged to indicate the explosive but avoided due to war time.Emergency A certificate has been issued by the Dock yard higher officials to unload it in priority basis. Unloading of the ship commenced immediately. However while unloading the lube oil drums onto the Jetty the foreman noticed quite a few of the drums were leaking. The Class ‘A’ explosives can only be loaded onto lighters.The lighters haven 't come alongside until midday even after issuing emergency certificate. Only few explosives are unloaded leaving major number on the ship. Mean while Chief engineer has started doing some maintenance work on the engines to replace a faulty valve which made the Ship Immovable except by tugging.
The Black day has arrived lighters haven 't reached the site until mid day again. Other Unloading activities are …show more content…
As the smoke got increased finding of source became impossible. While the extinguish works are going on, A meeting was held on deck between Ship and Dockyard officers. Several arguments happened but no decision came out. No one is sure about their Ideas. At 15:00hours around 50-60 hoses are in action of extinguishing but in vain as the fire is unable to control. Still captain is in hope of saving the ship when people asked the ship to tug off from the shore. so it was standing where she was. Several facilities are lagged because of war-time but in a situation of this disaster no one was empowered to give Direction to the force and people. Even the flames getting increased the fighters were bravely working to extinguish the fire.At 15:40 hours a huge flame shot out which passed over the ship mast. The captain ordered to abandon the