A number of ships have run aground or sunk in the Bristol Channel, a stretch of water between southern Wales and Somerset. Cardiff, Barry and Penarth were once the largest coal exporters in the world and the channel received significant traffic at the beginning of the twentieth century during exportation. In 1948 there were 24 known wrecks in the Bristol Channel, but by 1950 14 had been cleared by demolition. One ship, a tanker of over 10,000 tons that was sunk off Nash Point, required the use of 129 tons of explosives by HMS Tronda to break up the wreck.