Halifax Explosion of 1917: The ship collision that killed nearly 2,000

On the morning of 6 December 1917, two ships collided in Halifax Harbour. One was the French munitions carrier Mont-Blanc, loaded with explosives for the First World War; the other was the Norwegian vessel Imo. A fire broke out. Then the ammunition ship exploded with a force that devastated whole neighborhoods. Nearly 2,000 people died and around 9,000 were injured.

The blast destroyed more than 1,600 homes and left thousands without shelter. Glass shattered across the city; fires and a wave of water multiplied the chaos. Halifax was a busy wartime port, but its civilians suddenly found themselves on the receiving end of destruction comparable to a battlefield. Some had been watching the burning ship when it detonated.

Relief poured in, including help from Boston, and rebuilding changed the city. Yet no historical comparison with later bombs should obscure the human reality: on an ordinary December morning, a collision on the water ended thousands of lives and livelihoods. Halifax still remembers the explosion more than a century later.

• Historical source: Parks Canada: the Halifax Explosion.
• Read next: Boston’s Great Molasses Flood: The 1919 disaster that killed 21 people, or explore the disaster behind the year without a summer.