On 6 December 1917 in the harbour at Halifax, Nova Scotia, a cargo ship loaded with munitions bound for France collided with another ship carrying relief supplies to Belgium. The collision caused a fire on the munitions ship and then a massive explosion that killed nearly 2,000 people, injured 9,000 and destroyed much of the city
Yesterday’s terrible explosion in Beirut was smaller but may still have involved the detonation well over 1000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, perhaps a kiloton equivalent of TNT. At least 4,000 people have been injured and well over 100 killed. What has made the Beirut disaster so visceral is that the fire and small explosions that preceded led hundreds of people to capture the main explosion on cameras and smartphones. These showed, in sharp detail, the massive shock wave that spread out at amazing speed and they went on to record the damage and casualties right across the city.
The Beirut disaster happened less than 48 hours before the start of Hiroshima Day, 6 August, which this year marks the 75th anniversary of the destruction of the Japanese city in 1945 by a US atom bomb. Three days later, Nagasaki was destroyed, the two bombs combining to kill over 150,000 people.
