Halifax explosion

[dennilfloss]

The 1917 Halifax explosion ranks amongst the most deadly nonnuclear explosions. It was a tragic moment in Canadian history.

http://www.region.halifax.ns.ca/community/explode.html


There is a Canadian television vignette describing how a telegraph operator sacrificed his life to prevent a train from coming nearer as the ship was about to explode. A true hero.

Never Be The Same (Christopher Cross)

 

[chipbgt]

Man.....half ton pieces of metal thrown 2 or more miles? Thats amazing. Could you imagine being about a mile away when that thing blew?

 

[dennilfloss]

If I remember well, the only bodies recovered within 1 km were from basements. Everything above ground within that radius became soup. I suppose Dean or Brooks would know more about this.

A Thousand Miles from Nowhere (Dwight Yoakam)

 

[kranky]

That's astounding. Windows broken 50 miles away!

 

[Gustavus]

As I'm sure you are aware, there was a similar ship explosion at Texas City in 1947. The ship, the S.S. Grandcamp, was loaded with ammonium nitrate -- an equally good fertilizer or explosive. Only one third as many people were killed as in the Halifax explosion, but there are lots of similarities between the two disasters. The Grandcamps anchor, weighing 1 and 1/2 tons was found two miles away from the place the ship blew up.

In both cases, the ships involved were of French registry. In both cases, the explosion was preceded by a fire on board the ship that people gathered to watch which enormously increased the casualties. Learning from these examples no doubt, a DOD stategist in the 50's seriously proposed that the way to attack a Russian city was to first detonate a small nuclear device at very high altitude to create the spectacular airglow from the ionized particles, and then a few minutes later when many people had gone out to look at the display, to follow up with the main device.

 

[Dean]

Yeah Dennil that explosion rocked the foundation of the city. My father wasn't born yet but his Mother told him that when the explosion happened it knocked out all the west facing windows in the house and the ground shook violently. And they lived over 30 miles away at the time.

When you consider that Nova Scotia is basically on huge rock its even more astounding that the shock would carry so far

 

[dennilfloss]

Gustavus,

I was not aware of it but I'm always glad to learn.

One Way Or Another (Blondie)

 

[HannibalX]

35 tons of benzol, 300 rounds of ammunition, 10 tons of gun cotton, 2,300 tons of picric acid (used in explosives), and 400,000 pounds of TNT.

Daaaaaammmmmmmnnnn!!!!!

 

[RossGr]

On 7 Aug 1959 at 1:15am a truck load of Amonium Nitrate, a fertilzer, went off in my hometown of Roseburg Oregon, 14 people were killed, including the Fire Chief and a policeman who were tring to open the door of the truck. All that remained of the truck was the front axle wraped around a tree 6 blocks away, and a crater 30' across and 15'deep. This is the same explosive that caused the explosions at the World Trade center, Oklahoma City and Texas City. I am surprised that it wasn't involved in the Halifax explosion also.

BTW; I was 9 yrs old when this happened, it remains one of the most vivdly remembered nights of my life. We lived 3 miles from the Blast and could see the flames over the top of a 800ft high ridge between us and the fire as Downtown Roseburg burned. It is still remembered as "The Blast"