In an incredibly short space of time, considering the tremendous nature of the calamity, confusion took on the semblance of order, and the eager hands of willing citizens were busily engaged under the direction of committees in ministering to the maimed and injured, reverent burial of the untimely dead, catering for the hungry and providing for the thousands rendered destitute and homeless through the sudden stroke of swift catastrophe which has laid the city low.
Not yet, at this hour of writing, has Halifax recovered fully from the shattering blow of that fateful Thursday, the sixth of December; but with optimistic fortitude, with courage and with ardor, is already grappling with the Herculean task of reconstruction; and thus it is that the gloom of the present is even now radiantly relieved with the gleam of a splendid vision—The Greater Halifax of Tomorrow. Surely here is ample evidence that there is something in man, frail and human as he is, which nevertheless defies and rises above catastrophe.
HAROLD T. ROE.
Halifax, December 14th, 1917.
This picture was taken at the corner of Queen and Green Streets, three miles from the scene of the disaster, a few minutes after the explosion, and shows the cloud of smoke from the explosion.
This picture shows another view of the cloud of smoke from the explosion. This smoke cloud swept over the north end of the city and was visible in all sections of Halifax for more than a quarter of an hour.
By courtesy of G. V. D. V.
In one brief minute this home was smashed to atoms. Furniture and bathtub can be seen mixed up in the debris.