When hell came to Halifax: Howard Baker explains how the chance convergence of two vessels produced tragedy and disaster. (Cross Current).(collision of two freighters in harbor resulted in historic explosion)

The towering mushroom cloud is usually regarded as a symbol of the Nuclear Age, but in fact this phenomenon was first witnessed eighty-five years ago, before the power of the atom was recognised or released. In December 1917 there occurred an explosion so colossal that it ranks as the greatest man-made detonation before the destruction of Hiroshima. The incident, which is described in Michael J. Bird's book The Town That Died, leveled one quarter of the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and remains to this day the greatest disaster ever to strike Canada.

Established as a fortified ...

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