Halifax is 120th overall in Maclean's "Most Dangerous Places" annual ranking, which was released on Monday morning. That has Halifax as a safer place to live than Calgary and Vancouver, but more dangerous than Ottawa and Toronto. Maclean's found the safest place in Canada to be Rothesay and Quispamsis, New Brunswick.
Nearly 2,000 people died, another 9,000 were maimed or blinded, and more than 25,000 were left without adequate shelter. Halifax was devastated on 6 December 1917 when two ships collided in the city's harbour, one of them a munitions ship loaded with explosives bound for the battlefields of the First World War.
Perhaps the most horrifying part of the explosion is that it was completely preventable. The Harbour Masters should have ordered other vessels to hold their positions until the Mont-Blanc, full of munitions, had made safe passage through the port.
More than 1700 people were killed by the explosion and its after-effects. At least 9000 were injured and many more were made homeless. The Explosion immediately disrupted communications linking continental North America, Nova Scotia, and the world overseas.
Effects felt for miles: Homes as far as 10 kilometers away — or a little more than six miles — were damaged, according to witnesses. One Beirut resident who was several kilometers away from the site of the blast said her windows had been shattered by the explosion.
Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion is a two-part miniseries produced in 2003 by CBC Television. It presents a fictionalized version of the Halifax Explosion, a 1917 catastrophe that destroyed much of the Canadian city of Halifax. It was directed by Bruce Pittman and written by Keith Ross Leckie.
The Mont Blanc Anchor Site is located in a quiet residential area, formerly the Edmonds Grounds Estate, near the head of the Northwest Arm in Halifax, NS. The monument consists of the anchor shaft from the "Mont Blanc" munitions ship which exploded during the 1917 Halifax Explosion.
The British founded Halifax in order to counter the influence of the Fortress of Louisbourg after returning the fortress to French control as part of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748). The first European settlement in the HRM was an Acadian community at present-day Lawrencetown.
In the aftermath of the explosion, Halifax residents buried their dead, cared for the wounded, and began to rebuild their city. Despite the absolute destruction and the magnitude of relief operations, transatlantic naval convoys had resumed within a week.
Donation. Nova Scotia donated a large Christmas tree to the city of Boston in thanks and remembrance for the help Boston Red Cross and the Massachusetts Public Safety Committee provided immediately after the Halifax Explosion of 1917. Another tree was sent in 1971, and every year since.
The Imo collided with the Mont-Blanc, rupturing containers of benzol on the Mont-Blanc. Sparks from the grinding metal hulls ignited the benzol which spread to the Mont-Blanc's explosive cargo.
Unbeknownst to others in the harbour, the Mont-Blanc was carrying 2,925 metric tons (about 3,224 short tons) of explosives—including 62 metric tons (about 68 short tons) of guncotton, 246 metric tons (about 271 short tons) of benzol, 250 metric tons (about 276 short tons)…
The largest ever accidental explosion occurred in 1917, when two ships—one carrying TNT and other explosives—collided near Halifax, Nova Scotia. The blast killed about 1,800 people and shattered windows 50 miles away.
When did the Halifax explosion happen?
According to the Lebanese government, the source of the explosion was 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, an explosive chemical often used as fertilizer and sometimes in bombs, which had been stored in the port warehouse after being confiscated from an abandoned Russian-owned ship in 2014.
Halifax's Top Attractions: Everything You Need To Know (and more)!
- 1 – Halifax Citadel National Historic Site.
- 2 – The Old Town Clock.
- 3 – Halifax Waterfront.
- 4 – Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21.
- 5 – Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.
- 6 – Halifax Public Gardens.
- 7 – Point Pleasant Park.
- 8 – Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.
Halifax, in full Halifax Regional Municipality, city and capital of Nova Scotia, Canada. It owes its existence largely to its location on one of the largest and deepest ice-free natural harbours in the world, which, over time, made Halifax one of the most important Canadian commercial ports on the Atlantic seaboard.
