Kiwi Phil
Commander
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2003
- Messages
- 2,182
Are all of you familiar with this disaster.
I had heard of it but never read a good detailed account.
Must have been a mother-of-all-bangs!!
If it interests you, then here it is.
Cheers
Phillip
Halifax Disaster
In Halifax, Nova Scotia (Canada), there is a natural deep harbor. It is ice free and naturally deep. This is an ideal spot to assemble convoys to send to Europe, for the war effort. The inner harbor of this port was called Bedford Basin. On the evening of December the 5th 1917 the Basin was full of assembling merchant ships. The Harbor was also open to neutral ships (however their crews were not allowed onshore for security reasons). One of these was a Norwegian ship the SS IMO, she was alone, and was on her way to New York to load relief supplies for Belgium. She was behind schedule because of having to wait for coal. By the time she was loaded and ready to go the anti-sub nets guarding the port had already been closed. Meanwhile the French ship, SS Mont Blanc, was steaming in full to try to make the harbor before the anti-sub nets were closed. The Mont Blanc was loaded with a cache of explosives and volatile material. The Mont Blanc was late leaving New York Harbor so she was forced to stay outside the nets for the night. The next morning the IMO lifted anchor and started to head out of the harbor. Since she was practically empty she was probably traveling faster than usual. The Mont Blanc sailed in with a dangerous cargo of 2,300 tons of wet and dry picric acid (used in artillery shells), 200 tons of trinitrotoluene (TNT), 10 tons of gun cotton, with drums of Bezol (high octane fuel) stacked on her decks. They collided in the bottleneck part of the harbor know as the narrows. The Mont Blank caught fire and due to the intensity of the fire and volatile cargo Captain Le Medec ordered all hands to abandon ship. As she burned the Mont Blanc drifted to rest up against pier 6. At about 9:05 am the Mont Blanc exploded, the ship was disintegrated. Two square miles around the ship was flattened and most of the windows in Halifax blow out from the pressure of the blast. A mushroom shaped cloud raised a couple of miles into the sky. The Narrow was rained with around 3,000 tons of shrapnel and rocks (believed to have been sucked up from the harbor bed). Also causing destruction was the pressure wave. A part of the ship's anchor landed in the wood nearly 3 miles away. Also the ship's gun landed near Alboro Lake 2km away. Nearby ships were rocked and small ships (tugs, trawlers, etc.) were overwhelmed and sunk. This man made 'tsunami' was funneled up Tufts cove to an encampment of the Micmac (local native American tribe)which was completely destroyed. A small hill rose up opposite the narrows. Being in a highly populated area there was naturally a large crowd assembled. The crowd members experience many cases of blindness and eye injuries because of the explosion flash and glass shatters. It seemed as if this was all a plague because next came the fires. The blast turned homes into kindle wood. The shock wave had overturned coal stoves and cars, which were in widespread use because of the season. An hour after the initial explosion a rumor spread that the magazine at Wellington was on fire. That fire was contained. After that the final factor that contributed to the final death toll arrived near nightfall, the worst blizzard in over a decade. This explosion killed over 1,600 people just in the initial blast. It was the largest explosion ever recorded and kept that title until the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima during WWII.
I had heard of it but never read a good detailed account.
Must have been a mother-of-all-bangs!!
If it interests you, then here it is.
Cheers
Phillip
Halifax Disaster
In Halifax, Nova Scotia (Canada), there is a natural deep harbor. It is ice free and naturally deep. This is an ideal spot to assemble convoys to send to Europe, for the war effort. The inner harbor of this port was called Bedford Basin. On the evening of December the 5th 1917 the Basin was full of assembling merchant ships. The Harbor was also open to neutral ships (however their crews were not allowed onshore for security reasons). One of these was a Norwegian ship the SS IMO, she was alone, and was on her way to New York to load relief supplies for Belgium. She was behind schedule because of having to wait for coal. By the time she was loaded and ready to go the anti-sub nets guarding the port had already been closed. Meanwhile the French ship, SS Mont Blanc, was steaming in full to try to make the harbor before the anti-sub nets were closed. The Mont Blanc was loaded with a cache of explosives and volatile material. The Mont Blanc was late leaving New York Harbor so she was forced to stay outside the nets for the night. The next morning the IMO lifted anchor and started to head out of the harbor. Since she was practically empty she was probably traveling faster than usual. The Mont Blanc sailed in with a dangerous cargo of 2,300 tons of wet and dry picric acid (used in artillery shells), 200 tons of trinitrotoluene (TNT), 10 tons of gun cotton, with drums of Bezol (high octane fuel) stacked on her decks. They collided in the bottleneck part of the harbor know as the narrows. The Mont Blank caught fire and due to the intensity of the fire and volatile cargo Captain Le Medec ordered all hands to abandon ship. As she burned the Mont Blanc drifted to rest up against pier 6. At about 9:05 am the Mont Blanc exploded, the ship was disintegrated. Two square miles around the ship was flattened and most of the windows in Halifax blow out from the pressure of the blast. A mushroom shaped cloud raised a couple of miles into the sky. The Narrow was rained with around 3,000 tons of shrapnel and rocks (believed to have been sucked up from the harbor bed). Also causing destruction was the pressure wave. A part of the ship's anchor landed in the wood nearly 3 miles away. Also the ship's gun landed near Alboro Lake 2km away. Nearby ships were rocked and small ships (tugs, trawlers, etc.) were overwhelmed and sunk. This man made 'tsunami' was funneled up Tufts cove to an encampment of the Micmac (local native American tribe)which was completely destroyed. A small hill rose up opposite the narrows. Being in a highly populated area there was naturally a large crowd assembled. The crowd members experience many cases of blindness and eye injuries because of the explosion flash and glass shatters. It seemed as if this was all a plague because next came the fires. The blast turned homes into kindle wood. The shock wave had overturned coal stoves and cars, which were in widespread use because of the season. An hour after the initial explosion a rumor spread that the magazine at Wellington was on fire. That fire was contained. After that the final factor that contributed to the final death toll arrived near nightfall, the worst blizzard in over a decade. This explosion killed over 1,600 people just in the initial blast. It was the largest explosion ever recorded and kept that title until the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima during WWII.
and you are right many people in front of windows etc watching lost their sight as a result of the instanteous glass rupture.
