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A chilling reminder: Remembering the 1917 Halifax Explosion (Canada)

WITH BLOWING SNOW and frigid temperatures Sunday, it wasn’t hard to evoke the memory of the Halifax Explosion.

As those familiar with the story know, Mother Nature twisted the knife the day after the Dec. 6, 1917, catastrophe by whipping up a snowstorm that crippled a city already laid bare by the disaster.

Sunday’s nor’easter was a reminder of conditions 92 years ago was not lost on those attending the annual outdoor service at the bell tower in Fort Needham Memorial Park in Halifax’s north end in memory of the disaster and its victims...

... The explosion occurred when the Norwegian ship Imo and French munitions ship Mont Blanc collided in the narrows of Halifax Harbour.

Some 1,900 people were immediately killed by the blast, which took its heaviest toll in north-end Halifax and Tufts Cove in Dartmouth. The fatality figure eventually climbed to more than 2,000, with more than 9,000 also injured in the disaster.

The storm that hit the region a day later hampered rescue efforts, but relief trains from Boston and Montreal eventually got to the city.
Read entire article at The Chronicle Herald (Canada)