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This Was the Biggest Planned Explosion in Warfare Before Hiroshima
- version_five 4y agoMy first thought was "what about the Halifax explosion" but they mention it, and also a bigger WWII explosion, both of which were bigger but with fewer casualties: On December 6, 1917, the French vessel Mont Blanc accidentally collided with the Belgian relief ship Imo, in Halifax Habor, Nova Scotia, Canada, and exploded with the equivalent force of 2.9 kilotons. In another wartime accident, on this occasion during World War II, an underground munitions storage depot at RAF Fauld, England, saw 3,700 tons, or 3.7 kilotons, of bombs explode en masse — leaving a crater that was 130 feet deep and 0.019 square miles.
- ggm 4y agoPlanned. A series of large postwar explosions were carried out including one in Australian tropical rainforest to test theories for clearance by nuclear explosion. Some of them seeded the explosives with radioactive markers to test dispersion. They were smaller than this I believe. I have always wondered if the truly big explosions are too big and leave behind materiel which was ejected, and did not slow combust. Ignition is sometimes hard.
- version_five 4y agoRight, I missed "planned" and was just focused on the size, good point.
- ggm 4y agoHalifax was awful. They still send a Christmas tree south every year in thanks to the aide their US neighbours gave at the time.