Browse "Disasters"

The ice storm of 1998 was one of the largest natural disasters in Canadian history. Between 4 and 10 January 1998, sections of the St. Lawrence Valley from Kingston to Québec’s Eastern Townships received up to 100 mm of ice pellets and freezing rain — more than double the icy precipitation normally received in those areas in a whole year. The storm claimed as many as 35 lives, injured 945, and resulted in the temporary displacement of 600,000 people. Several roads were shut down and massive power outages occurred, cutting off electricity for nearly 1.4 million customers in Québec and over 230,000 in eastern Ontario. The total financial cost of the storm is estimated at $5.4 billion.

At first they thought it was a prank, the kind of crazy thing that students just a month from graduation might pull.This article was originally published in Maclean's Magazine on May 3, 1999

It was just after 3 a.m. last Thursday morning, more than 18 hours after the deadliest terrorist bomb in American history detonated in front of a federal building in downtown Oklahoma City.This article was originally published in Maclean's Magazine on May 1, 1995

There is, first of all, the Worship House - a blue-roofed building that looks as though it could be the dwelling place of forest creatures in a Wagnerian opera.This article was originally published in Maclean's Magazine on April 7, 1997

They cried often, smothering their sobs with their hands, as the prosecutor meticulously detailed how their relatives had died in the horrifying explosion.This article was originally published in Maclean's Magazine on June 9, 1997

Dozens of people who were inside Elliot Lake’s doomed mall are haunted by close calls, fateful decisions and countless ‘what-ifs’This article was originally published in Maclean's Magazine on July 8, 2013

This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on April 19, 1999. Partner content is not updated. Like many of his colleagues at Ottawa-Carleton's public transit company, Grant Harrison wore his grief openly.

Five major investigations were commissioned, but to little avail. Between 1921 and 1926, 138 townships in southern Alberta, comprising nearly 3.2 million acres (1.3 million ha), lost at least 55% of their population; by 1926 80% of the Tilley-East country was permanently evacuated.

The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated. High above the St. Lawrence River, on a hot August day in 1907, a worker named Beauvais was driving rivets into the great southern span of the Quebec Bridge. Near the end of a long day, he noticed that a rivet that he had driven no more than an hour before had snapped clean in two. Just as he called out to his foreman to report the disquieting news, the scream of twisting metal pierced the air. The giant cantilever dropped out from under them, crashing into the river with such force that people in the city of Quebec, 10 km away, believed that an earthquake had struck.

   Construction on the Québec Bridge, 11 km above QUÉBEC CITY, officially began in 1900. On 29 August 1907, when the bridge was nearly finished, the southern cantilever span twisted and fell 46 m into the St Lawrence River.

​Railway accidents may result from a number of situations, including improper track beds, metal fatigue, fire, flawed rails, human error and frail bridges.

This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on May 12, 1997. Partner content is not updated. The flood of the century, they have been calling it in Manitoba, an awesome demonstration of nature’s raw might.

This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on August 5, 1996. Partner content is not updated. One soggy day late last April, Art Poirier found himself among thousands of people stacking sandbags against rising floodwaters from southern Manitoba's ancient and implacable nemesis, the Red River. Poirier flicked a cigarette butt into the brand new lake around his home.

The 1917 Halifax Explosion is well-known as the biggest human-made explosion in the pre-atomic era. The event was also the largest mass-blinding in Canadian history and it played a crucial role in the founding of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB). (See also Blindness and Visual Impairment.)

The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.