Wreck of De Hoop on the banks of the Rhine near Emmerich, Germany, by Meik Wächter
In the winter of 1894/1895, seven ships coming from Leverkusen had sought shelter from the expected ice on the banks of the Rhine near Emmerich and stored their cargo, which consisted of many hundreds of crates of Guhr dynamite. After the Rhine was free of ice again, six ships were to be loaded with this dynamite on 19 March 1895 by workers from Porz near Cologne. It was then to be taken to Holland.At around 6.10 p.m., the area resounded for kilometres with an explosion boom. On De Elisabeth, which was closest to the shore, probably 1400 cases of dynamite had blown up. The other five nearby ships were also caught in the inferno, burnt out and sank. Among them was De Hoop, a single-masted ship about 32 m long and over 5 m wide.
16 people died and many were seriously injured. The cause of the explosion could never be determined.
