Editing Halifax Explosion (section)

==Destruction and loss of life==
{{multiple image
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 | image1 = Halifax Explosion Aftermath LOC 1 - retouched.jpg
 | alt1 = Building with walls bent outward and floor collapsing
 | caption1 = Explosion aftermath: St. Joseph's Convent, located on the southeast corner of Göttingen and Kaye streets
 | image2 = Halifax Explosion Aftermath LOC 2 - restored.jpg
 | alt2 = Large building with windows and part of roof missing
 | caption2 = Explosion aftermath: Halifax's Exhibition Building. The final body from the explosion was found here in 1919.{{sfn|Kitz|Payzant|2006|p=62}}
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The exact number killed by the disaster is unknown. The Halifax Explosion Remembrance Book, an official database of the [[Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management]], identified 1,782 victims.<ref name=pans>{{cite web|url=https://archives.novascotia.ca/remembrance/ |title=Halifax Explosion Remembrance Book |publisher=Public Archives of Nova Scotia |accessdate=14 November 2021|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20211113204240/https://archives.novascotia.ca/remembrance/|archivedate=13 November 2021}}</ref> As many as 1,600 people died immediately in the blast, tsunami, and collapse of buildings. The last body, a caretaker killed at the Exhibition Grounds, was not recovered until summer 1919.{{sfn|Kitz|Payzant|2006|p=62}} An additional 9,000 were injured.<ref name=scan/> 1,630 homes were destroyed in the explosion and fires, and another 12,000 damaged; roughly 6,000 people were left homeless and 25,000 had insufficient shelter.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://maritimemuseum.novascotia.ca/what-see-do/halifax-explosion/halifax-explosion-infosheet|title=Halifax Explosion infosheet|publisher=Maritime Museum of the Atlantic|author=Kitz, Janet|date=19 February 2009|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131016132248/https://maritimemuseum.novascotia.ca/what-see-do/halifax-explosion/halifax-explosion-infosheet|archivedate=16 October 2013}}</ref><ref name=canen>{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Kernaghan |first1=Lois |last2=Foot |first2=Richard |url=http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/halifax-explosion/ |title=Halifax Explosion |encyclopedia=The Canadian Encyclopedia |date=4 March 2015|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20151231231855/http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/halifax-explosion/|archivedate=31 December 2015}}</ref> The city's industrial sector was in large part gone, with many workers among the casualties and the dockyard heavily damaged.<ref name=dev>{{cite web|url=http://www.cbc.ca/halifaxexplosion/he3_shock/he3_shock_destruction.html|publisher=CBC|title=The destruction|work=City in Shock|accessdate=30 April 2015|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150415035302/http://www.cbc.ca/halifaxexplosion/he3_shock/he3_shock_destruction.html|archivedate=15 April 2015}}</ref>

A mortuary committee chaired by Alderman R. B. Coldwell was quickly formed at [[Halifax City Hall]] on the morning of the disaster. The Chebucto Road School (now the [[Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts]]) in [[West End, Halifax|Halifax's west end]] was chosen as a central morgue.{{sfn|Flemming|2004|p=67}} A company of the [[Royal Canadian Engineers]] (RCE) repaired and converted the basement of the school to serve as a morgue and classrooms to serve as offices for the Halifax coroner. Trucks and wagons soon began to arrive with bodies.{{sfn|Kitz|1989|p=60}} [[Arthur S. Barnstead]] took over from Coldwell as the morgue went into operation and implemented a system based on the one his father, [[John Henry Barnstead]], developed to catalogue the dead{{sfn|Kitz|1989|p=73}} in the aftermath of the {{RMS|Titanic||2}} disaster of 1912.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://maritimemuseum.novascotia.ca/what-see-do/titanics-halifax-connection/titanic-information|title=Titanic Infosheet|publisher=Maritime Museum of the Atlantic|accessdate=30 April 2015|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150510161728/http://maritimemuseum.novascotia.ca/what-see-do/titanics-halifax-connection/titanic-information|archivedate=10 May 2015}}</ref> Many of the wounds inflicted by the blast were permanently debilitating, such as those caused by flying glass or by the flash of the explosion. Thousands of people had stopped to watch the ship burning in the harbour, many from inside buildings, leaving them directly in the path of glass fragments from shattered windows.{{sfn|Mac Donald|2005|p=234}} According to an article in the ''[[British Journal of Ophthalmology]]'', ophthalmologists responding to the disaster performed 249 [[enucleation of the eye|enucleations]]; 16 people had both eyes removed.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://bjo.bmj.com/content/bjophthalmol/91/6/832.full.pdf| title=The Halifax disaster (1917): eye injuries and their care|journal=British Journal of Ophthalmology|date=2007|pp=832&ndash;835|doi=10.1136/bjo.2006.113878|first1=Chryssa |last1= McAlister|first2=T Jock|last2= Murray|first3= Hesham|last3= Lakosha|first4= Charles |last4=Maxner|volume=91}}</ref>

An estimated CA$35 million in damage resulted (CA${{Inflation|CA|35|1917|r=0}} million today).<ref name=canen/> About $30 million in financial aid was raised from various sources,{{sfn|Armstrong|2002|p=213}} including $18 million from the federal government, over $4 million from the British government, and $750,000 from the Commonwealth of [[Massachusetts]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.halifax.ca/recreation/arts-culture-heritage/halifax-explosion/halifax-explosion-history|publisher=Tourism Halifax|title=Halifax Explosion|accessdate=30 April 2015|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20190329033831/https://www.halifax.ca/recreation/arts-culture-heritage/halifax-explosion/halifax-explosion-history|archivedate=29 March 2019}}</ref>

===Dartmouth===
Dartmouth was not as densely populated as Halifax and was separated from the blast by the width of the harbour, but still suffered heavy damage. Almost 100 people were estimated to have died on the Dartmouth side. Windows were shattered and many buildings were damaged or destroyed, including the [[Oland Brewery]] and parts of the Starr Manufacturing Company.<ref name=dev/> [[Nova Scotia Hospital]] was the only hospital in Dartmouth and many of the victims were treated there.{{sfn|Kitz|Payzant|2006|p=109}}

===Mi'kmaq settlement===
There were small enclaves of [[Mi'kmaq]] in and around the coves of Bedford Basin on the Dartmouth shore. Directly opposite to Pier 9 on the Halifax side sat a community in [[Tufts Cove, Nova Scotia|Tufts Cove]] which included the Mi'kmaq community of Turtle Grove. In the years and months preceding the explosion, the [[Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada|Department of Indian Affairs]] had been actively trying to force the Mi'kmaq to give up their land and move to a reserve, but this had not occurred by the time of the explosion.{{sfn|Kitz|Payzant|2006|p=87}}<ref name=":0">{{cite journal|last1=Remes|first1=Jacob|title=Mi'kmaq in the Halifax Explosion of 1917: Leadership, Transience, and the Struggle for Land Rights|journal=Ethnohistory|date=2014|volume=61|issue=3|pages=445–466|doi=10.1215/00141801-2681732}}</ref> Turtle Grove was close to the centre of the blast and the physical structures of the settlement were obliterated by the explosion and tsunami.<ref name=canen/> A precise Mi'kmaq death toll is unknown as the Department of Indian Affairs and census records for the community were incomplete. Nine bodies were recovered from Turtle Grove and there were eleven known survivors.<ref>{{cite book|first=Jennifer |last=Burke|chapter=Turtle Grove: Dartmouth's Lost Mi'kmaq Community|title=Ground Zero: A Reassessment of the 1917 Explosion in Halifax Harbour|publisher=Nimbus Publishing |year=1994|pages= 50&ndash;51}}</ref> The Halifax Remembrance Book lists 16 members of the Tufts Cove Community as dead; not all the dead listed as in Tufts Cove were Indigenous.<ref name=pans/> The Turtle Grove settlement was not rebuilt in the wake of the disaster.{{sfn|Kitz|Payzant|2006|p=88}} Survivors were housed in a racially segregated building under generally poor conditions and most were eventually dispersed around Nova Scotia.<ref name=":0" />

===Africville===
The [[black people|Black]] community of [[Africville]], on the southern shores of Bedford Basin adjacent to the [[Halifax Peninsula]], was spared the direct force of the blast by the shadow effect of the raised ground to the south.<ref name=dev/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Remes |first1=Jacob |title=What We Talk About When We Talk About Africville |journal=African American Review |date=Fall 2018 |volume=51 |issue=3 |pages=223–231 |doi=10.1353/afa.2018.0034}}</ref> However, Africville's small and frail homes were heavily damaged by the explosion.<ref name=tat/> Families recorded the deaths of five residents.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://novascotia.ca/archives/virtual/remembrance/Results.asp?Search=Africville&fieldSelect=keyword |title=Halifax Explosion Book of Remembrance |publisher=Public Archives of Nova Scotia |date=2 December 2010 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150122034726/https://novascotia.ca/archives/virtual/remembrance/Results.asp?Search=Africville&fieldSelect=keyword|archivedate=22 January 2015}}</ref> A combination of persistent racism and a growing conviction that Africville should be demolished to make way for industrial development resulted in the people of Africville receiving no police or fire protection; they had to make do without water mains and sewer lines, despite paying city taxes.{{sfn|Sutherland|2017|p=7}} Africville received little of the donated relief funds and none of the progressive reconstruction invested in other parts of the city after the explosion.<ref name=tat>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/africville/|encyclopedia=The Canadian Encyclopedia|title=Africville|author=Tattrie, Jon|date=27 January 2014|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20141104150224/http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/africville/|archivedate=4 November 2014}}</ref><ref name=heb>{{cite journal|title=Building the old new order: Halifax in the wake of the great explosion|author=Hebert, Michelle|journal=New Maritimes|volume=14|issue=4|date=March–April 1996|pages=4–15}}</ref>