MicroFactzzz#0073 · ☠️ Dark Facts
Two ships collided in a harbor and triggered the biggest explosion before the atomic bomb
In 1917, a collision between a munitions ship and another vessel in Halifax, Canada, flattened an entire district of the city.
On December 6, 1917, in the harbor of Halifax, Canada, the French ship Mont-Blanc, loaded with explosives for World War I, collided with the Norwegian ship Imo.
A fire on board led, after about 20 minutes, to an explosion with a force estimated at several kilotons of TNT — the largest human-made explosion until nuclear weapons tests more than a quarter-century later.
The shockwave flattened much of the harbor district, killing nearly two thousand people and injuring tens of thousands more, including hundreds blinded by shattered glass flying from windows at the moment of the blast.
The significance: the disaster led to changes in international regulations on shipping dangerous materials by sea, and to this day Halifax sends a Christmas tree to Boston every year in gratitude for the help it received after the disaster.
Sources
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