93 Years

Today marks the 93rd year of the Halifax Explosion. For those of you unfamiliar with this, Halifax is a city and a harbour here in Nova Scotia. In 1917, two ships collided, one was carrying ammunition and explosives for the war. The blast killed approximately 2000 people and over 9000 people were injured. The blast could be felt as far up as New Brunswick and it is the largest man made accidental explosion to date. Have a read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_explosion

Holy shit, were they going to end the war by blowing up all of europe with those explosives? I mean, 2000 killed and 9000 wounded? That must have been an absolutely massive explosion.

Yep, it was very large. In the wiki page there's a list of comparisons. Though it's not the most forceful accidental explosion recorded, it's killed the most and did the most damage for its size and force. It caused a Tsunami with a wav ~18 feet I believe and a blizzard hit the next day bringing 16 inches of snow. A lot more people died because of that too because pretty much everything in a 2 block radius had been completely obliterated and a lot of stuff outside that radius heavily damaged.

Woah, shit. Hard lines, Halifaxians.

Yep, certainly glad I wasn't alive in 1917!

Holy shit...thats all I can say.

One of the most famous (and heroic) stories that come out of this though is that at the time of the explosion, a train carrying 300 people was coming into halifax. The city was being evacuated as fast as possible because the ships were soon to collide and explode. As one of the last dispatchers was about to leave, he remembered that this train (and others) were coming into the city soon. He sent out a message using morse code signaling all trains to stop and not come into the city. Seconds later the explosion occurred and wiped out the building the dispatcher was in, killing him. The train however received the message and so did the other trains and this prevented hundreds of possible deaths from occurring.

That man deserves a statue or something, he selflesly give his life to save many others *salutes*

Agreed, thats the way I wanna go down.

And I'm sure that guy was like, DW's great grandfather or something.

And probably like a day earlier, he impregnated his wife, who later gave birth to DW's grandfather, and then the family line went from there.

I'm not that far off am I?

dayum!

closest youd get to a nuke in those days

leewatson1 wrote:That man deserves a statue or something, he selflesly give his life to save many others *salutes*

I'm pretty sure there is one

Darkjedi wrote:And I'm sure that guy was like, DW's great grandfather or something.

And probably like a day earlier, he impregnated his wife, who later gave birth to DW's grandfather, and then the family line went from there.

I'm not that far off am I?

Yeah you are, his last name was Coleman, I have someone I know who is a Coleman though, but he's not worth the legendary line of THAT Coleman

Wow, a realy hero, as Destral said, i would want to go down that way, and i agree with that statement.

There's even a Heritage Moment TV commercial about it. If I feel like it, maybe I'll find it on Youtube later

Darkwing wrote:

leewatson1 wrote:That man deserves a statue or something, he selflesly give his life to save many others *salutes*

I'm pretty sure there is one

Darkjedi wrote:And I'm sure that guy was like, DW's great grandfather or something.

And probably like a day earlier, he impregnated his wife, who later gave birth to DW's grandfather, and then the family line went from there.

I'm not that far off am I?

Yeah you are, his last name was Coleman, I have someone I know who is a Coleman though, but he's not worth the legendary line of THAT Coleman

So instead he made camping gear.... i see...

leewatson1 wrote:That man deserves a statue or something, he selflesly give his life to save many others *salutes*

super agree