Remembering the HALIFAX EXPLOSION
Yesterday was the 95th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion, the largest man-made explosion up to the atomic bomb. Two thousand people died, more than six thousand were wounded and blinded (by flying glass), and over 9,000 left homeless. Relief efforts were hampered by a blizzard the day after the disaster.
Compare those figures to the sinking of the Titanic five years earlier: 1,500 people dead, no record of injuries (they would have been few), no one blinded, no one left homeless.
But the luxury ship makes a better movie than the poor and working class homes in Halifax that were destroyed, the dead from the ship included rich people, and they were mainly American and British, while the explosion affected Canadians.
Perhaps that’s why there’s barely anyone alive in the developed world who does not know the story of the Titanic; while few people, even Canadians, remember the tragedy that befell Halifax Nova Scotia on December 6th, 1917.
You can read more details of the explosion at my review of the book Blizzard of Glass.
Ellen at Invest Me in My Motley has written a touching requiem, including links to some extremely moving material. I encourage you to have a look.
What a terrible event. Oddly enough, I just recently heard about the Bell Island incident as well. It seems that these bizarre and (in the case of Halifax) horrendous events just get easily forgotten in the general memory. And in the case of Americans, they’re ignored altogether. (But goodness knows, I did a whole semester of Texas history. What’s amazing is that anyone could get a semester out of it!)
Bonnie, I recall you posting about the Belle Isle tragedy. That was the first that I had heard of that. It’s a shame how such events are forgotten while we remember what happened in Pompeii in the year 79. In the case of the Halifax disaster, it was on the scale of Pearl Harbor, yet is largely unknown.
I have to say that I never heard about this before this post — which is a tragedy in and of itself.
That’s not surprising, Mrs. J. I’m Canadian and I had never heard of it before moving to Atlantic Canada 10 years ago. History must be full of such tragedies. 🙁
Fascinating bit of history – that was totally unknown to me. I’ll have to check the library for that book.
S, the book is a really good look at the incident. Check out the link I added above, too. Ellen’s done a great post about it.
I remember you mentioning this last year but it hadn’t dawned on me that it was on Dec 6th. It’s an easy date to remember, for me anyway. It should be more widely known, thanks for telling us about it.