100 years ago

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In December 1917, The IMO and the Mont Blanc collided in the Halifax, Nova Scotia area.

Result: The largest man-made explosion to date ( at that time ).

Here is a well told tale of that event:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5uTAt_A8BY

Ignore the comments section... This collision appears to have been ( as most such events are ) a chain of mistakes, and unfortunate occurrences.

This is a fascinating maritime tale, nicely presented.
 
Bruce, how big was the Concord naval weapons station explosion in comparison? Was Bill there too?
 
Hi Charlie:
Another example of poor piloting. I wonder if they even used harbor pilots then.

I dont know how they compare. Concord NWS was probably bigger because the weapons were more modern but I dont know. I dont think Bill was in Concord. Wasn't he a shooting instructor during WWII?
 
The Manhattan Project sent scientists to examine Halifax and the explosion effects to determine what the A-Bomb would do. For a few years early atomic weapons were rated on the "Halifax scale" to rate their destructive capability. It was soon superseded by a comparison to "tons of TNT".
 
Halifax was bigger than Port Chicago explosion
I think Halifax is still biggest non nuke except for man-made test explosions
 
The info I have seen is that By most measures, Halifax was bigger, but not all measures. Texas City is larger in some ways. I have forgotten the details, however. ( Plus, Texas was after Halifax, which means that both can actually be "largest ever", if Tx City was larger... )
 
I studied both blasts as part of officer candidate training back when the earth was flat. Texas City made a contribution to terrorism by illustrating the explosive power of cheap commonly available Ammonium Nitrate.

Visited Halifax. It was beautiful, probably because so much of it was new... So long ago that Anne Murray was a local talent in plaid blouse, jeans and bare feet singing at the yacht club.
 
I had never heard of this Halifax explosion so looked it up on Wiki. It seems that the IMO was completely to blame as it ignored signals from the Mont-Blanc. The pilot on the Mont-Blanc tried to warn and was ignored.

The Halifax explosion killed and injured many more people than the Texas City. I did not find a TNT equivalent on the Texas city explosion, but the Halifax was rated at 2.9 Kilo Ton. The Texas City only had 2.2 Kilo tons of Amonium Nitrate involved so obviously less explosive power.

George
 
from wikipedia, believe it or not

Rank order of largest conventional explosions/detonations by magnitude
These yields are approximated by the amount of the explosive material and its properties. They are rough estimates and are not authoritative.

Event Location Date Approximate yield
Minor Scale and Misty Picture tests White Sands Missile Range 27 June 1985; 14 May 1987 4.0 kt of TNT (17 TJ)
Heligoland/British Bang test Heligoland island 18 April 1947 3.2 kt of TNT (13 TJ)
Halifax Explosion Halifax, Nova Scotia 6 December 1917 2.9 kt of TNT (12 TJ)
Texas City disaster Texas City, Texas 16 April 1947 2.7–3.2 kt of TNT (11–13 TJ)
Evangelos Florakis Naval Base explosion Cyprus 11 July 2011 2–3.2 kt of TNT (9–13 TJ)
RAF Fauld Explosion Staffordshire, UK 27 November 1944 2 kt (8.4 TJ)
Port Chicago disaster Port Chicago, California 17 July 1944 1.6–2.2 kt of TNT (7–9 TJ)
N1 launch explosion Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 110 3 July 1969 1 kt of TNT (4 TJ)
 
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