Two ships collided in Halifax Harbor. One of them was a floating, 3,000-ton bomb.

Washington Post ^ | December 6, 2017 | Steve Hendrix

[billorites]

On the bright, freezing morning of Dec. 6, 1917, a French captain steered his ship, the SS Mont Blanc, up the channel leading to the piers of Halifax, Canada’s major Atlantic port. Just after 8:30, as the ship steamed into the bottleneck between the ocean and the inner harbor, he looked up to see something that shouldn’t have been there: the SS Imo, a Norwegian freighter, heading straight toward him on his side of the skinny narrows.

The two massive ships blasted their whistles, attempted a few evasive maneuvers and then collided, bow to bow. It was not a fatal blow.

“In marine terms, what happened was a fender bender,” said historian Roger Marsters. “It was only the character of the cargo that made it what it was.”

What the Imo had rammed was a 3,000-ton floating bomb. The Mont Blanc was crammed with munitions, bound for the war raging in Europe. Its holds were crammed with 2,500-tons of TNT and picric acid. The decks were crowded with barrels of high-octane benzole.

The resulting blast was the biggest man-made explosion of the pre-atomic age, according to analysts. It devastated the busy port city, leveling more than a square mile of the waterfront, killing more than 2,000 people and injuring 5,000 more, almost 12 percent of Halifax’s population. The massive iron hull disappeared, blown into shrapnel that tore through neighborhoods miles from the harbor. A half-ton chunk of its anchor still lies where it landed 2.5 miles away. “Halifax” became the standard of blast comparisons for decades, unsurpassed as an explosive disaster until Hiroshima replaced it in 1945.

The horror of crushed schools and victims stumbling bloodied and blown naked through the rubble has stamped the city to this day, said Marsters, curator of marine history at the Nova Scotia Museum.

[billorites]

SS Imo?

[BenLurkin]

[oldplayer]

This article is from the Washington Post. Thus, I would assume normally that the city could as well be London, Cleveland, or Kansas City. However, this particular tragedy is well documented elsewhere. This is an interesting article. Thanks for the posting.

[dp0622]

Damn. What a shame. Thanks.

I’d be lying if I said i knew exactly how that worked, but dont want to bother you to explain it.

[V_TWIN]

I’ve heard the story. 2000 dead...terrible. All that steel flying.

[SES1066]

I have been to the Maritime Museum in Halifax. A piece of good feeling history comes from the relation established between Halifax and Boston in the USA from Colonial Times. Boston was among the first US cities to hear of this disaster and was also the first to respond with massive assistance by a special emergency train with supplies and medicos. The ‘official’ Boston Christmas Tree is a gift from the Provincial Government of Nova Scotia.

[dp0622]

It sounds like the stuff nightmares are made of.

You’re just sitting in school or wherever. And then you’re gone :(

[billorites]

My mother was a five year-old living in Halifax at the time of the explosion. Her six month-old baby brother normally had his bath in his top floor bedroom same time every morning. This morning, for some reason, my grandmother was late giving him his bath.

My mother recalled sitting on the side of the bed, amongst the broken glass beneath the blown out skylight. She sat looking at the skylight waiting for the German soldiers to come down through from the roof.

[csvset]

Yeah, pretty catastrophic. I had the pleasure of visiting Halifax a couple of times as a liberty port.

[wastoute]

There was a similar accident in Galveston Harbor in the 30’s, IIRC, with Ammonium Nitrate. Apparently, they didn’t realize you couldn’t just fill the hold of a freighter with loose fertilizer and there was a delay in leaving the port that allowed the internal temperature to rise to spontaneous ignition.

[Robert A Cook PE]

The Texas City explosion/fires occurred later (WWII timeframe) and also devastated a port city.

[billorites]

"2000 dead...terrible. All that steel flying."

The subsequent fire did tremendous damage. A heavy snowfall later in the day seriously impeded emergency responders.

[VanDeKoik]

Just got done reading a book about this. Still hard to wrap my head around the devastation that the city sustained.

But kudos to Massachusetts back then. They really came through for the town with money and medical volunteers.

[Red Badger]

The problem with learning history is they’re always making more of it!....................

[Red Badger]

What was SS Mont Blanc’s cargo?...........

[Red Badger]

Excuse me, the Imo’s cargo..................

[dp0622]

How can you keep up! :)

Kind of semantics but hurricanes and blizzards and explosions and a million other things are history right after they’re gone.

They’re in the past. 5 minutes or 5000 years.

[Calvin Locke]

The harbor is basically bowl-shaped, along with a thick overcast that morning, helped to contain the blast, increasing its intensity, unfortunately for those there.

The disaster did contribute to the establishment of "pediatrics" as medical specialty, given the amount of children needing medical attention.

Also, the brilliant British officer whose policies bypassed the standard safety protocols for such military hazmat was transferred to Boston to "help" the Americans.

By the end of the war, the French captain was in good standing with France, and was awarded a service medal or the like.

[Kriggerel]

Incomplete without the story of Vince Coleman’s ultimate sacrifice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw-FbwmzPKo

[Rebelbase]

Recent movie about it is called Shattered City. Here’s the part where it goes bang:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3DU95ZLxw8