Tragedy in Halifax (4 photos)
10 minutes before an entire city evaporates 
10 minutes before an entire city evaporates
If you think a train or ship wreck is just a pile of twisted metal, then the story that happened in Halifax, Canada, will change your understanding of the scale of disasters. December 1917. Two ships collided in port. One of them, the Mont Blanc, was packed to the brim with explosives: TNT, picric acid, and benzene. The ship caught fire.
The crew quickly realized something unimaginable was about to happen and fled in panic to the shore in the lifeboats, without even trying to warn the townspeople. The ship drifted straight toward the Halifax piers.
At that time, Vince Coleman, a railway dispatcher, was working at the station. When he received a shout that the burning ship carrying TNT was about to explode, he ran for the exit. He had maybe ten minutes to save his own skin. But suddenly, Vince remembered: passenger train No. 10 from St. John's, carrying 300 people, was scheduled to arrive at the station in a couple of minutes.
Coleman stopped. He turned around. He sat down at his telegraph machine and began broadcasting in Morse code: "Hold the train. The ammunition ship is on fire and will explode. Goodbye, boys." He pounded out the message again and again until the explosion occurred.
The explosion yielded 2.9 kilotons—the most powerful non-nuclear explosion in human history. Fragments of the anchor, weighing half a ton, flew three kilometers. The city of Halifax was wiped off the map in a millisecond, and two thousand people died instantly. Nothing remained of Vince Coleman or his booth.
But that same train #10 managed to brake a safe distance away. 300 lives were saved thanks to the tap of a telegraph key.
Modern culture teaches us to elevate personal boundaries and "save yourself first." That's probably right. But when I read the text of Coleman's final telegram, a shudder runs through me. What kind of piece of titanium does it take to stare imminent death in the face and choose to save complete strangers over self-preservation?
"On December 6, 1917, an explosion occurred in the harbor of the Canadian city of Halifax. This event is considered the most powerful explosion of the pre-nuclear era, estimated to be equivalent to 2.9 kilotons of TNT." 
