Halifax explosion how many died

Supplementary information such as age, family name, religion, date of death and place of burial, as well as additional names of victims, was located in the records of the Halifax Relief Commission. A systematic search of contemporary local newspapers such as the Halifax Herald and the Morning Chronicle also supplied, in some instances, date of death, burial place, religion and names of family members. Other records consulted included church burial records, cemetery records and miscellaneous published items.

See sources The availability now of the newly-discovered death register from provides yet another authentic source of original information about Explosion victims. In working with this broad landscape of source materials, various discrepancies in age, religion and place of burial have been identified. Other relevant details, such as the names of women and children, were also sometimes omitted.

For example, unless a widow filed a formal pension claim for loss of support from a husband killed in the Explosion, her given name frequently cannot be determined from other available records. In the case of babies, their given names are often not listed. Discrepancies have also been identified regarding the location of burials, most commonly with reference to Fairview Lawn and St.

John's Cemetery, because the two are located side by side. On the waterfront, the railway yards were destroyed, as were a series of large piers that once jutted into the harbour. Even larger stone or concrete buildings, such as the Richmond Printing Company, were reduced to rubble. Bewildered survivors, including those injured or in shock, wandered or crawled amid the wreckage, trying to make sense of what had happened. Across Halifax, there were miraculous stories of survival.

And equally, stories of tragedy. Many children were killed on their walk to school that morning, or blinded by flying glass. Those that survived the blast stumbled home, only to find their houses shattered, or their parents dead or wounded, among the wreckage. About 1, people died instantly, including hundreds of children. Roughly more died from their injuries in the days that followed. The explosion and its flying debris decapitated some, took the limbs from others, and left many with burns, fractures and open wounds.

Morgue records from show 1, known dead or missing — about a third of them under the age of By , the number of dead had been revised at 1, Nine thousand more were wounded, including hundreds blinded or partially blinded by flying glass.

More than 1, buildings were destroyed and 12, damaged. Twenty-five thousand people were made homeless or lacked proper shelter after the explosion — a problem made worse by the winter blizzard that struck Halifax the next day.

Halifax 's civilian administration was ill-equipped to respond to the disaster. Before the explosion, social services were few, and mostly offered by private charities, not government.

The city's mayor was away at the time, so leadership of the immediate response fell to Deputy Mayor Henry Colwell. He himself had only a small police and fire service to call on, and to make matters worse the fire chief, Edward Condon, had been killed and the city's only fire pumper truck was destroyed. Despite these challenges, Halifax could take advantage of legions of well-disciplined military personnel who happened to be in the city, providing a ready and organized workforce to bring aid and a semblance of order.

The military response included crews from warships that either survived the blast, or arrived in the harbour in the days afterwards, who came ashore to help in the rescue and relief effort. Many homeless or wounded victims were also given shelter and medical care on board Canadian, American and other ships in the harbour. From across Halifax, survivors rushed to Richmond to rescue people trapped in homes, carry stunned and wounded residents to safety, hand out clothing and clear debris from roads.

Local businesses donated supplies and offered work crews to help in the immediate aftermath. Rockhead Prison on Gottingen Street was opened up as a shelter for the homeless.

Since the city's commercial undertakers couldn't cope with the number of dead, Chebucto Road School, just outside the blast area, was turned into a morgue. Meanwhile, city officials hastily organized committees that provided emergency food, shelter and transport — for delivering the injured to hospital and taking relief workers into devastated areas.

The military was given full emergency powers to commandeer automobiles, control looting attempts and to regulate movement in and out of Richmond. Relief workers and supplies soon flowed into Halifax from virtually every community across Nova Scotia.

The explosion also made headlines around the world. Trains from throughout the Maritimes and from central Canada and New England soon brought medical aid, doctors, nurses, food, clothing, building materials and skilled labourers.

Huge volumes of relief and assistance, organized in nearby Boston, and provided by the Massachusetts—Halifax Relief Committee, were particularly noteworthy. Many medical workers who came from Canada and the United States were later haunted by the horrors of the injuries they treated, particularly among children.

The funds were administered from to by the Halifax Relief Commission — created by the federal government to oversee claims for loss and damage, rehousing and rehabilitation of explosion victims. The Commission took charge of most areas of relief and reconstruction work. It provided ongoing medical and psychological care; paid out cash for the medical, travel and living expenses of needy survivors; provided housekeepers for widowed parents who needed to return to work; or provided money for people whose wounds prevented them from working.

The Commission also oversaw reconstruction of the city, including Canada's first public housing construction project — the Hydrostone development — in Richmond. It later became a pension board, dispensing funds to disabled dependents. Halifax 's angry survivors demanded answers — and scapegoats — in the wake of the tragedy. At first, there were rumours that German saboteurs were behind the explosion.

Evan Wyatt, the naval officer in command of the harbour. The war brought a vast destructive force to the centre of Halifax, and unplugged, one by one, the details that a peacetime society would have insisted on.

So, decision by decision, the consequences of small errors grew and grew. No very serious mistake caused the explosion in the immediate sense — just some hurry, misunderstanding and bad luck. The points on this map correspond to the home addresses given for victims of the Halifax explosion who lived in Halifax and listed in the explosion remembrance book available online from the Nova Scotia Archives.

The map points are approximate locations of the addresses in Halifax. As digital mapping was far in the future, address locations had to be approximated from historical records. This map is meant to display broad patterns. Further research would be needed to establish exact locations.

Some address points correspond to exact address points as shown on the devastated area map, while others correspond to approximate positions along a block segment, as listed in the city directories.

The locations are only as accurate as the historical records and are pinpointed on a modern map as closely as could be achieved using GIS software.

World Canada Local. The Halifax Explosion killed nearly 2, people. Here is where most of them lived. Full Menu Search Menu. The relief staff opposed surrendering Frances back to the Middlemore agency that had brought her from England to Nova Scotia to work as a domestic servant. Insistent that this teen should complete her schooling, the Commission declared Frances to be a de facto orphan and itself assumed the role of guardian. The explosion death of widower James Sheridan left his two young children without a parent.

Following time in an orphanage, the Commission used the promise of pensions to persuade a somewhat reluctant aunt to give them a home. The Commission faced even greater difficulty when dealing with the Carr family. Widow Mary Carr and her youngest child died in the explosion. Six offspring survived, four of them adults and two children.

Sibling rivalry led to misappropriation of family assets and then wrangling as the Commission sought to impose fair play on the family. More numerous than orphans were children with significant injuries. Robert Myers, two years old, became partially blind in the explosion and after recuperation was fitted with an artificial eye see The Halifax Explosion and the CNIB. While partial loss of sight must have proven traumatic , the explosion sometimes resulted in even more devastating injuries.

Such was the case of nine-year-old Roy Cookson, whose fractured skull led to months of hospitalization, only to return home as a chronic invalid. Commission efforts at remediation by way of special diet, drugs, protective clothing, and repeated medical examinations did little good, and Roy died at an early age.

The disaster carved a vicious swathe through the Stokes family, which saw a husband and eldest son killed, the mother and one son totally blinded, another daughter left with just one eye, and her sister without the lower part of one leg.

Assisted by an uninjured daughter and pressured by influential friends of the family, the Commission consented to an expensive and protracted program of medical and pension relief.