Wut?
Well JasoninHalifax posted about the Halifax Explosion. Thought there could be a cool family connection!
Son, there ain’t no daft anymore
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I used to live in a circa late 1800s house in the south end with cracks in the plaster walls likely due to the explosion. All the houses in the north end were flattened.
Here’s an interesting article talking about how trees in Halifax still have metal in them from the explosion.
Good story in the Boston Globe earlier this week regarding the response, also includes a link to a new book: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/12/04/with-halifax-aflame-boston-rushed-aid/TAG0SyWYgYBZMEE54L7kPL/story.html
The author of that book was on our local talkshow radio channel the other day, and I heard a lot of the details of the story. Very amazing story to say the least.
Interesting, thanks for sharing.
I went looking for more info to better understand what caused the incident. Also the linked article reference to “raw ingredients for a bomb” didn’t provide much info re. the munitions. Here’s a quick read with more info: http://exhibits.hsl.virginia.edu/halifax/collision/
Cliffnotes. Imo was Norwegian. Capt was pissed. Headed out to see w/o permission from Portmaster. Failed to yield. Mont Blanc was French. She failed to fly a red flag indicating she was a munition’s ship, an action that would have likely changed Imo’s behavior. After incident Mont Blanc caught fire so crew abandoned which allowed ship to drift to densely populated shore. I wonder if it would have been better if they’d have dropped anchor where they were.
Based on where I believe the collision happened, if they had dropped anchor at the site of the collision then the damage may have been a bit less, but there still would have been very significant damage and loss of life. That part of the harbour isn’t very wide, probably under 1km.
Interesting, thanks for sharing.
I went looking for more info to better understand what caused the incident. Also the linked article reference to “raw ingredients for a bomb” didn’t provide much info re. the munitions. Here’s a quick read with more info: http://exhibits.hsl.virginia.edu/halifax/collision/
Cliffnotes. Imo was Norwegian. Capt was pissed. Headed out to see w/o permission from Portmaster. Failed to yield. Mont Blanc was French. She failed to fly a red flag indicating she was a munition’s ship, an action that would have likely changed Imo’s behavior. After incident Mont Blanc caught fire so crew abandoned which allowed ship to drift to densely populated shore. I wonder if it would have been better if they’d have dropped anchor where they were.
Wikipedia has a pretty good explanation of what caused the initial fire, (benzoate or something that is similarly named leaking into the hold, and sparks when the imo tried to separate from the Mont Blanc.) but I’m not sure what the munitions consisted of.
Wikipedia has a pretty good explanation of what caused the initial fire, (benzoate or something that is similarly named leaking into the hold, and sparks when the imo tried to separate from the Mont Blanc.) but I’m not sure what the munitions consisted of.
Holy Crap
Great explanation
The ship was completely blown apart and a powerful blast wave radiated away from the explosion at more than 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) per second. Temperatures of 5,000 °C (9,000 °F) and pressures of thousands of atmospheres accompanied the moment of detonation at the centre of the explosion.