The Halifax Explosion: Surviving the Blast that Shook a Nation

by Joyce Glasner

A boat full of explosives heads in to the harbour as a large cargo ship steams out to sea. What happened next, on a fateful day in December 1917, is etched in history. At least 1900 people lost their lives and 9000 were injured when the largest manmade explosion ever experienced ripped through Halifax and nearby Dartmouth. Panic reigned as the survivors struggled to comprehend what had happened.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

128 pages, Paperback

First published October 20, 2003

Reviews

[Ross Blocher · Rating 4 out of 5]

My dad had told me stories about the Halifax explosion of 1917 while reading this book, and I had mistakenly obtained a copy of the more recent and more expansive The Great Halifax Explosion (my review here). For someone really wanting to dig into the history of the topic, I'd recommend that book, as this is more of an easy reading / grade school level account (and included in the bibliography of John U. Bacon's book). However, it was nice to revisit the topic, now that I'd read the other book and visited the Maritime Museum in Halifax, as well as stopping by the memorial tower and site on the water where the explosion took place. Glasner's account puts a lot of focus on eyewitness testimonies, and she employs artistic license to flesh out their panicked experiences following the destructive fallout of the Imo's collision with the Mont-Blanc. The sudden unleashing of 6 million pounds of explosives (the largest man-made explosion until 1945's atomic bomb) flattened entire neighborhoods, killed an estimated 1,900, injured another 9,000, and left a whole generation of Haligonians (Halifax residents) with eyes missing or damaged from glass and metal shrapnel. Glasner shares accounts of people discovering dead bodies, or survivors with horrific injuries and missing limbs or body parts, and the struggle just to keep people fed and cleaned and reunited with what family was left in the aftermath of the initial explosion, the resulting flood, and the chill blizzard that followed.

It's a horrific tragedy that makes you wish you could go back in time and sink the Imo before it caused such incalculable suffering.

[Doris Powell · Rating 4 out of 5]

What awful devastation! This took place in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, in Dec., 1917. Nothing matched it until Hiroshima in 1945. And, of course, I can't help but think of 9/11 in our own country.The death statistics were about the same as 9/11, over 2ooo. but the overall destruction of the city was closer to Hiroshima. Sadly, from 200 to 600 people lost their sight due to windows shattering. This destruction was all caused by a Belgium tramp steamer in a hurry to get out of the Halifax Harbor, and it collided with a French freighter where the Harbor narrowed. And the French freighter was carrying explosive materials! Such a tragedy.

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting history to know