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Breaking Disaster: Newspaper Stories of the Halifax Explosion
"The rumble got louder, the walls quaked as if in fear, and the classroom's windows started to pulse and shake before they completely shattered, showering everyone inside with glass."
On December 6, 1917, the face of Halifax changed forever when the Imo, a Belgian Relief ship, collided with the French ship, the Mont Blanc. Shortly after 9:00 a.m., the Mont Blanc, which was carrying a large cargo of explosives, blew up. It destroyed much of the city's north end and neighbouring communities like Tuft's Cove and Dartmouth. The effect was catastrophic.
Almost immediately, aid was rushed to Halifax as survivors and workers dug through rubble and ruins for friends and family. Over 2,000 people died and 9,000 were injured, while countless others were rendered homeless. As news broke about the explosion, newspapers from Toronto to Hawaii and France to Australia scrambled to provide readers with updated information.
These and other stories gave face to a disaster which, at the time, was a mix of ever-changing statistics, details, and questions about blame. Often the reports were exaggerated and erroneous. In Halifax, newspapers carried lists of the injured, dead, and missing alongside a collection of notices and ads. This strange juxtaposition showed just how quickly the explosion had happened as holiday-themed advertisements mixed with notices about relief and stories of survival and death. Together, they present the overarching image of Halifax at the time--survival and confusion--while separately they show just how much impact one event had.
In Breaking Disaster, Ingram traces these details and stories as she pieces together the different narratives from the week that followed December 6, 1917, many of which have long faded into the larger story of the Halifax Explosion.
On December 6, 1917, the face of Halifax changed forever when the Imo, a Belgian Relief ship, collided with the French ship, the Mont Blanc. Shortly after 9:00 a.m., the Mont Blanc, which was carrying a large cargo of explosives, blew up. It destroyed much of the city's north end and neighbouring communities like Tuft's Cove and Dartmouth. The effect was catastrophic.
Almost immediately, aid was rushed to Halifax as survivors and workers dug through rubble and ruins for friends and family. Over 2,000 people died and 9,000 were injured, while countless others were rendered homeless. As news broke about the explosion, newspapers from Toronto to Hawaii and France to Australia scrambled to provide readers with updated information.
These and other stories gave face to a disaster which, at the time, was a mix of ever-changing statistics, details, and questions about blame. Often the reports were exaggerated and erroneous. In Halifax, newspapers carried lists of the injured, dead, and missing alongside a collection of notices and ads. This strange juxtaposition showed just how quickly the explosion had happened as holiday-themed advertisements mixed with notices about relief and stories of survival and death. Together, they present the overarching image of Halifax at the time--survival and confusion--while separately they show just how much impact one event had.
In Breaking Disaster, Ingram traces these details and stories as she pieces together the different narratives from the week that followed December 6, 1917, many of which have long faded into the larger story of the Halifax Explosion.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
159 pages, Paperback
Published November 26, 2017
About the author
Katie Ingram
3 books7 followersKatie Ingram is a journalist and author based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
She is the author of Breaking Disaster: Newspaper Stories of the Halifax Explosion and The Undesirables: A History of Rockhead Prison
She is the author of Breaking Disaster: Newspaper Stories of the Halifax Explosion and The Undesirables: A History of Rockhead Prison
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 2, 2018
If you're looking for a concise introduction to the Halifax Explosion, Ms. Ingram's book will fill that need nicely. She quite ably takes all the newspaper reports of the first few days and organizes them into a very readable narrative.
February 12, 2018
This is an interesting look at the Halifax Explosion that devastated the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia one hundred years ago. It's fascinating to read how a community pulled together during a truly horrible time. Written with a style that is factual yet still interesting, this is definitely worth reading.
March 9, 2019
The combination of snappy writing and a ex-reporter's curious mind, with a knack for research, make this book a worthy read for anyone who is deep into the topic of the Halifax Explosion, and interested in a fresh angle, or to anyone looking for their very first book from which to glimpse this event of North American war history.
Ingram weaves in unforgettable characters like the children who survived, as well as many who didn't, and whose names were recorded first in the draft of history that appeared in newspapers produced by journalists in Halifax. The book serves a double purpose of being a fascinating window into the history of the media business in Canada and its efforts to adapt to disaster circumstances. There is also testimony of racist incidents in the wake of the disaster, when German descendents are arrested, despite having had no role in the war-time collision between the French and Belgian ship that caused the deadliest explosion in Canadian history, during WWI. The author dedicates one of the final chapters to those people whose stories were most obviously missing from the record of the day laid out in newspapers, the communities of African Nova Scotians and First Nations whose dead went unrecorded by the colonialists who had brought the war and the dangerous ammunitions ships to the shores of K'jipuktuk, otherwise invisible victims in the stories centering the white culprits of devastating the landscape.
Thoroughly enjoyed this read, despite the morbid subject matter, and it left me wanting more.
Ingram weaves in unforgettable characters like the children who survived, as well as many who didn't, and whose names were recorded first in the draft of history that appeared in newspapers produced by journalists in Halifax. The book serves a double purpose of being a fascinating window into the history of the media business in Canada and its efforts to adapt to disaster circumstances. There is also testimony of racist incidents in the wake of the disaster, when German descendents are arrested, despite having had no role in the war-time collision between the French and Belgian ship that caused the deadliest explosion in Canadian history, during WWI. The author dedicates one of the final chapters to those people whose stories were most obviously missing from the record of the day laid out in newspapers, the communities of African Nova Scotians and First Nations whose dead went unrecorded by the colonialists who had brought the war and the dangerous ammunitions ships to the shores of K'jipuktuk, otherwise invisible victims in the stories centering the white culprits of devastating the landscape.
Thoroughly enjoyed this read, despite the morbid subject matter, and it left me wanting more.
May 22, 2025
Short book, but covers a fair amount of ground. Interesting perspective in how it focuses on the newspaper representation of the explosion.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews