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MG 1 vol 2124 number 294a
HALIFAX DISASTER RECORD OFFICE
ARCHIBALD MACMECHAN, F. R. S. C.
HALIFAX, N. S.
From 'The National Humane Review'.
February, 1918.
STRICKEN HALIFAX
By R. H. Murray, K. C.
Chairman Animal Relief Committee and Secretary Nova Scotia S. P. C.
Halifax has one of the finest harbors in the world. Vast shipments of all kinds of war materials have gone forth from this haven to the ocean to be used by the Allies in the fight for the world's freedom. On Thursday morning, December 6th, an ordinary looking steamer sailed towards the Narrows. The day was beautifully clear and the temperature a little above the freezing point. The Mont Blanc proceeded on her way towards the Basin. The Imo, of the Belgian Relief Commission, came out of the Basin and both boats in the ordinary course of navigation ought to have passed safely through the Narrows. So far as the evidence shows there was a misunderstanding of signals and then followed the most frightful, sudden catastrophe which has ever fallen on North America.
The writer was about leaving his house, two miles from the collision, and whilst sitting in his chair, talking to a member of his family, there was a muffled roar, a deep rumble and the shaking of the house; then followed a great crash. The large and small sashes were wrenched from the windows and the glass smashed into thousands of pieces. Spears and diagonals of glass were driven with such force by the power of the T. N. T., - the extraordinary high explosive carried by the Mont Blanc - that they were forced into the brass of bedsteads and mahogany was as pulp wood when the points of glass hit it and embedded themselves to a depth of half an inch. The folding doors were spread open at right angles and fell with a crash as if shoved by a mighty unseen hand. The plaster fell from the walls and the dust made the air of the house intolerable. Thousands of persons escaped, but alas many hundreds were killed or blinded for life by the glass. This home incident is illustrative of the lightest damage which was suffered. The following, taken from one of our daily papers, is a comparatively correct picture of the disaster:
"In an instant, the district roughly bounded on the south by North street and on the north by the Rockhead hospital, and on the west by the exhibition grounds, was devastated. Almost every living thing within this area was killed, either by the force of the explosion, or by flying timbers, shells or torn pieces of steel and iron with which the air was filled. Those who escaped alive were all more or less seriously injured; many were torn by the hail of debris; still more were cut by glass; horses were terror-struck by the unknown danger and rushed madly around the torn streets, dragging behind them the shattered remains of the vehicles to which they had previously been harnessed. Those who were living ran aimlessly about crying and whimpering, with blood streaming from their wounds, and their faces so blackened with soot and grime as to be unrecognizable. Human beings with shattered limbs dragged themselves from beneath the ruins of what had a moment before been prosperous homes and industrial establishments, looking for help which there was no one to render. A hundred fires broke out simultaneously; live electric wires, dangling from poles broken in half like toothpicks from the shock, sputtered and fused along every sidewalk; trees were denuded of their branches and left stark and black with torn stumps stretched heavenward. It was Dante's Inferno, done into actuality."
What struck even a native with amazement was the heroic way in which the people bore their suffering. Not a tear was shed and a fatalistic as well as

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