Anniversary

Ninety-five years ago Friday, Dec. 6, 1917, a French munitions ship, the Mont Blanc, loaded with 2,653 tonnes of explosives, collided with a Norwegian freighter, the Iwo Jima, in Halifax harbour. The Mont Blanc exploded and the resulting shock wave and 20-metre tsunami levelled Halifax. The population was 50,000, and 2,000 were killed instantly, 600 of whom were under 15. Nine thousand people were injured, 6,000 seriously.

Every building within a 26-kilometre radius was flattened. The next day, the worst blizzard of that decade dropped 40 centimetres of snow on a city in which 25,000 people did not have windows in their homes anymore. Out of the ashes rose heroes like Vince Colman, a local railway operator who stopped an incoming train and saved 800 lives while losing his own, and the crew of the Stella Maris tugboat, who gave their lives attempting to tow the Mont Blanc away from shore. The city of Boston stepped up for Halifax in a huge way and Halifax will never forget.

Just thought I should mention the Halifax explosion since the school system and media outside of Nova Scotia do not.

Eric Gravelle, Calgary