Cargo of the Damned - When Ships Carry More Than They Bargained For

Sometimes the deadliest cargo appears on shipping manifests as routine commercial goods, but three major disasters prove that ordinary ships can become extraordinary weapons of mass destruction. This episode reveals how the SS Mont-Blanc, carrying "general munitions," actually held enough explosives to create the largest pre-atomic explosion in human history, vaporizing Halifax Harbor in 1917 and killing 2,000 people who came to watch what they thought was a simple ship fire. Jack Maddox exposes the Exxon Valdez disaster, where corporate cost-cutting and broken radar systems led to an oil spill that contaminated 1,500 miles of Alaskan coastline and continues poisoning the ecosystem thirty years later. The episode examines how the Ever Given's grounding in the Suez Canal demonstrated that container ships carrying ordinary consumer goods can paralyze global commerce, holding the world economy hostage for six days and revealing dangerous vulnerabilities in just-in-time supply chains. Through corporate documents and environmental impact studies, the episode shows how cargo disasters expose the gap between maritime reality and corporate marketing, proving that ships can carry destruction in forms their crews never understand.

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