Ask most people what famous maritime disaster is linked to Halifax, Nova
Scotia, and the answer will no doubt be, “Titanic,
of course,”
- being the port where many bodies and some wreckage ended up after
that great tragedy of 1912.
But
because the carnage of the Great War overshadowed everything else at the
time, an event that took place just five years after Titanic
may not be as well known. It resulted in the deaths of around 2,000
people, injury to another 9,000 as well as the demolition of much of
Halifax itself.
It
was caused by an explosion, the greatest ever man-made prior to the
invention of the atomic bomb, and was the result of a collision
between two ships in the harbour, between the empty Norwegian vessel
Imo,
and the French vessel, Mont-Blanc,
which was loaded down with explosive supplies intended for the war in Europe.
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| Houses left like piles of matchsticks |
This
info sheet produced by the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic gives a
good summary of exactly what happened on that fateful day, 6
December, 1917.
And the even more comprehensive“In the blink of an eye” website is excellent and is totally dedicated to the explosion and its
aftermath.
The
long list of names in the Nova Scotia Remembrance Book can make for
sober reading with so many children listed, including those who had just arrived to begin the school day and those in an orphanage.
One wonders at how many individuals living safely in Canada were grieving or deeply concerned for their loved ones fighting overseas, never for one moment imagining that the horrific tools of war would end their own lives.
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| Frozen in time, the moment of detonation (Maritime Museum of the Atlantic) |
The
last few nonagenarian survivors of the great explosion all died
quite recently, among them Verna Jeffries and Mary Murphy
In 2005, a film was made of event, “The Shattered City”
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| Never forgotten. The Fort Needham Bell Tower where every year a memorial service is held Dennis Jarvis © All Rights Reserved |
