The Halifax Explosion
*December 6th 1917*
*Convoyes crossing the Atlantic usually all assembled in Halifax's port to avoid the U-boats
*French ammunition ship called the mont blanc was rammed by an outgoing Belgium ship called the SS IMO
*Mont Blanc was loaded with 2,300 tons of wet and dry picric acid (For artillery shells), 200 tons of trinitrotoluene (TNT),10 tons of gun cotton with drums of Bezol(high octane fuel)
*The Mont blanc was rammed by the SS IMO
*The ship was immediately abandoned because of all the explosive cargo on the ship
*The ship was on fire and continued to burn while drifting towards the shore
*People were curious and went down to look
*9:05 am the mont blanc exploded
*Two square miles around the ship were flattened, most of the windows in halifax exploded from the pressure
*Mushroom cloud in the sky, then it rained 3,000 tons of shrapnel rocks
*2,000 dead (1,950 Unknown) 9,000 were injured *The explosion was responsible for a large amount of Canada's World War I-related civilian deaths and injuries, and killed more Nova Scotian residents than were killed in combat.
*600 hundred were under the age of 15
*166 were labourers
*134 were canadian soldiers and sailors
*125 were craftsmen
*39 were railway workers
*Largest man made explosion ever up until the atomic bomb was dropped.
*Convoyes crossing the Atlantic usually all assembled in Halifax's port to avoid the U-boats
*French ammunition ship called the mont blanc was rammed by an outgoing Belgium ship called the SS IMO
*Mont Blanc was loaded with 2,300 tons of wet and dry picric acid (For artillery shells), 200 tons of trinitrotoluene (TNT),10 tons of gun cotton with drums of Bezol(high octane fuel)
*The Mont blanc was rammed by the SS IMO
*The ship was immediately abandoned because of all the explosive cargo on the ship
*The ship was on fire and continued to burn while drifting towards the shore
*People were curious and went down to look
*9:05 am the mont blanc exploded
*Two square miles around the ship were flattened, most of the windows in halifax exploded from the pressure
*Mushroom cloud in the sky, then it rained 3,000 tons of shrapnel rocks
*2,000 dead (1,950 Unknown) 9,000 were injured *The explosion was responsible for a large amount of Canada's World War I-related civilian deaths and injuries, and killed more Nova Scotian residents than were killed in combat.
*600 hundred were under the age of 15
*166 were labourers
*134 were canadian soldiers and sailors
*125 were craftsmen
*39 were railway workers
*Largest man made explosion ever up until the atomic bomb was dropped.