The workers at the Hillcrest Mine had started the morning shift on June 19, 1914 when an explosion rips through tunnel 33. 189 miners die in the worst mining disaster in Canadian history.
Tragedy strikes one afternoon at a circus and one winter night at a movie theater. Until the Hartford Circus Fire, circuses performed in large canvas tents, waterproofed with paraffin and kerosene. In 1944, a Ringling Brothers tent caught fire near Hartford, Connecticut, resulting in the fiery deaths of 168 persons, mostly children - heralding the end of the big top era.
In October 1954 an unexpected weather system hurls Hurricane Hazel out of the Caribbean via a low pressure system to re-energize over Lake Ontario, slamming into Toronto and causing 80 deaths. Swollen river systems flooded city streets and forced the city to re-engineer waterways and parks to avoid unnecessary fatalities.
Examines the trail of destruction left behind by volcanic eruptions. Mont Pelee; Tangiwai.
In a wealthy enclave of Texas, the Consolidated School has illegally tapped into a 'wet' natural gas line to save the cost of heating. When contractors maintaining the school puncture the gas line, odorless gas fills the building, and a spark sets off an explosion that kills 455 people. Local hospitals run out of bandages, undertakers can't meet the demand for coffins and the community is forever changed. Legislation is passed that introduces mercaptan into natural gas, giving it the telltale odor we recognize today.
Seventy eight sealers die on an ice shelf in 1914.
The greatest disaster ever to strike the Great Lakes was the 1913 Lake Huron Storm.
Examines the destructive force of nature on human shelters.
In 1911 a massive eruption at Mt. Taal killed 1,335 people through a combination of lava flow and a tsunami.
One of the worst mining cases in 1958 in Nova Scotia; a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in 1911 in New York City.
Rapid City Creek floods, destroying homes, cars and businesses.
Cyclone Tracy damages Darwin, Australia, on Christmas Eve 1974.
A hurricane strikes the Florida Keys on Sept. 2, 1935.
Dry temperatures and strong winds ignite brush fires in Victoria, Australia, in 1939, killing 71 people.
An aircraft descends through snow showers until it hits treetops and then the ground killing 20 people.
At a 1944 Ringling Brothers Circus show, the main tent catches fire killing 168 spectators.
Young girls leapt to their death rather than to face the flames during a factory fire in 1911.
A tornado touches down just outside Windsor in 1946.
A flood covers one tenth of the city of Winnipeg.
Examines the aftermath of a fire that broke out in a Boston nightclub in 1942.
In June of 1958 18 men were killed while building the Second Narrows Bridge across the Burrard Inlet.
In 1954, a Harvard RCAF trainer and a Trans-Canada North Star collide killing 37.
A train full of holiday travelers attempted to cross a damaged bridge and falls into the Whangaehu River.
Examines the devastating motor sport accident that occurred during the 1955 Le Mans race in France.
Two ships collide causing a massive explosion with devastating results.
A fire broke out on the tour ship Noronic claiming the lives of 118 passengers and crew.
An earthquake causes a tsunami that kills over 246 people.
A cluster of 148 tornadoes rages through the American midwest killing 324 people.
A tornado rages through Regina in 1912 destroying neighborhoods, churches, and many stone buildings.
Examines the 1903 disaster where the side of a mountain disintegrated dumping debris on the sleeping people in the town below.
Water is mightier than the humans who try to harness its power.
Halifax explosion; Le Mans race car crash.
The Regina tornado; the American super outbreak.
The Frank Slide; The Hillcrest Mine disaster.
Kwanto earthquake; Mangua, Nicaragua.
Tragedy strikes during the middle week of October, 1913.
Noronic fire; the Cocoanut Grove fire.
Hurricane Hazel; the 1960 Great Chilean tsunami.
Empire State building crash; Moose Jaw air crash.
The Quebec Bridge; the Molasses Flood disaster.
The Minaki Special, an outdated wooden passenger train, collides with the all-steel Transcontinental in 1947, killing 30 people; a 1910 snow avalanche buries 60 rail workers in British Columbia.
When disaster strikes for the coal miner excavating the earth and the fisherman harvesting the sea, the way of life of entire communities is at risk.
Examines the Queen Mary and Curacoa crash and the Newfoundland Sealing disaster.
A huge tidal wave hits England and the Netherlands and claimed 2,000 lives. 200 die in Austria avalanche.
Two avalanches leave 70,000 people without power.
The province of British Columbia declares at state of emergency and evacuates residents due to a forest fire.
A U.S. Navy destroyer and supply ship grounded themselves on the rocks of Newfoundland's Burin Peninsula.
Swiss Air 111 decides to make an emergency landing when a cockpit fire makes the electric system fail.
Pilots making a touch down notice a snow plough on the runway.
A hurricane hits Halifax and brings the city to a standstill.
Mobile oil drilling platform Ocean Ranger sinks to the bottom of the sea killing 84 people.
A catastrophic earthquake off the eastern coast of the Kwanto Province in Japan caused numerous buildings to collapse.
Examines the impact of the Nicaragua earthquake in 1972.
A crew dispatched to clear railroad tracks from one avalanche dies in another.
In 1947, an outdated passenger train collides with the Transcontinental.
An earthquake causes a tsunami which caused massive damage to Newfoundland's Burin Peninsula.
A strange train disaster kills 521 people.
A chain reaction of fire and explosions claims the U.S.S. Forrestal.
The sinking of the HMS Thetis during a trial dive claimed the lives of all 99 aboard.
A tank of molasses splits open and kills 21 people.
A bridge claims a total of 89 lives before reaching from shore to shore.
On Oct. 23, 1958, a mining accident buries 174 men in Springhill, Nova Scotia.
The busy Metropolitan Department Store in downtown Windsor explodes from within.
Winds turn a small fire into an inferno that destroys towns.
The 1945 crash of a B-25 Bomber lost in fog into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building.
A storm claims the lives of over 200 sailors.
A charter bus sinks in Quebec's Lac D'Argent.
Rogers Pass avalanche; Vaiont Dam.
The Minaki train; Naples Black Market Express.
U.S.S. Forrestal; HMS Thetis.
Crash of Flight 111; sinking of the Princess Sophia. In most tragic accidents, there is, at least, a happy ending for some. In some cases, however, there is no happy ending, and despite the hopes and desperate prayers of those who await their arrival, there will be no survivors.
Ocean Ranger disaster; Hurricane Juan. Anyone who lives near the sea knows the spell it casts, with its great majesty, and its romantic lure. But when the weather turns violent, the ocean becomes a life threatening force. And there is nowhere completely safe.
In 1916, high winds blowing through the forests of Northern Ontario turned a small fire into an inferno that destroyed nearly 800 square miles of forest.
British Columbia forest fires; a Toronto snow storm. The poet Robert Frost once wrote: 'Some say the earth will end in fire, some say in ice.' Fire and ice have been at the heart of our most destructive disasters, changing lives forever.
Like it or not, we are all inexorably tied to the climate in which we live, impacted by its cycle of constant change. Sometimes that change comes without warning and a mild winter weekend becomes a prelude to destruction from above -- and a summer day full of promise ends in a whirlwind of devastation and death.
It is a land sculpted by prehistoric meteors, glacial erosion and ancient earthquakes, a place where a country's history is first chronicled. The quaint villages that dot the countryside of Quebec, Canada represent some of the continent's earliest European settlements. The people here treasure their rural lifestyle where heritage, culture and community blend with the extraordinary landscapes that surround them. But sometimes those landscapes bring betrayal and devastation beyond anyone's imagination -- and one Quebec community is swallowed by the very earth that was its foundation -- and another must grieve the gaping hole left by the loss of its most cherished citizens.
It is an old traveler's cliché that 'getting there is half the fun'. This is especially true of travel across the vast, varied and beautiful reaches of the Canadian landscape. But when fate intervenes, travel can quickly turn from fun to deadly.
Some regions seem more prone to Disaster than others. Through the sheer accident of geography, life on disaster row can be fraught with frequent danger.
One of the most spectacular and deadly dam failures in history occurred in Italy's Longarone Valley on October 9, 1963. Just 2 years old, the new dam was crested by a storm surge after massive waves set off a landslide. That landslide dropped tons of earth into the reservoir and overflowed the dam. In an instant, 2500 lives were washed away.
On the rugged west coast of British Columbia, the Brittania Mine Complex is struck by a flash flood pouring down from the mountain range above. More than fifty homes are simply swept into the freezing Pacific Ocean, killing 37 unfortunate souls.
As the first World War wound down in 1918, the steamship Princess Sophia sailed Between Alaska, Yukon and the Inside Passage of British Columbia. A modern ship, Princess Sophia was equipped with wireless and electricity on all decks. Heavy winds, snow and poor visibility saw the ship run aground on Vanderbilt Reef. Though she stayed afloat for another day, rescue efforts failed, and she slipped beneath the waves. 75 crew and 268 passengers perish.
Volatile weather is part of life on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, but no-one could have predicted the tornado that touched down after an intense hail storm in the holiday community of Pine Lake, Alberta. At the Green Acres campground tents, trailers and RV's were shattered and spread for miles around, and 12 unlucky campers died that day.
They say animals always know when disaster is about to strike. In St. Jean Vianney, the dogs began to whimper and whine and the cows refused to leave their barns as the ground trembled and made strange sounds. As night fell, a massive sinkhole opened up, swallowing entire homes and the families that lived in them. Thirty-one people perish, and the town is forever abandoned.
Storm events are not uncommon in the southern United States, including Galveston Texas, where a massive hurricane comes ashore in 1900. More unusually, the storm continued inland, across the prairies of the US and Canada before turning east and devastating Southern Ontario and the Maritime provinces of the east coast. By the time its blown itself out, the Galveston Hurricane has left 86 dead in it's path.
A head-on train collision kills four railroad workers and 17 soldiers.
A gas explosion destroys a school and kills 455 people.
A fire traps people inside Montreal's Blue Bird Café and the Wagon Wheel; Flight 261 struck the runway ending in an explosion.
A storm claims the lives of 35 men and boys, devastating a small fishing village.
As survivors try to dig out victims of an avalanche, a second avalanche hits them.
During a concert at the Knickerbocker Theatre a wall cracks open, and the roof collapses killing 95 people.
A jet fighter crashes into a convent in 1956.
A bus carrying volunteers and the handicap plunges into an icy lake.
In Pictou County, Nova Scotia the dangers of mining are real and present, never so clearly than on May 9, 1992. Despite the latest safety devices, methane gas released by mining coal was somehow ignited, and 26 miners died.
The snow is falling on March 10, 1989 and the temperature is dropping. A Fokker F28 with 69 passengers aboard attempts to lift off from Dryden Ontario. Speeding down the runway, ice forms on it's wings. and the aircraft fails to lift, crashing at the end of the runway. 24 passengers die in the jet fuel accelerated inferno.
In 1965 Mt. Taal in the Philippines erupted killing 350 people; in 1929 a submarine earthquake triggered a tsunami.
Examines the Truxtun and Pollux and the PWA 737 Cranbrook crash.
Allegheny Airlines flight 736 takes off from Erie, Pennsylvania at 7:45 PM on December 24, 1968. On approach into Bradford, light snow obscures the runway lights and the pilots make a critical error by descending too quickly. The Corvair CV-580 slams into a hillside and kills 20 passengers. Sweeping changes to navigation in poor weather follow the avoidable crash.
In 1941, a blizzard swept through Canada and the United States, taking the lives of eight Canadians and at least 70 Americans.
North America's most destructive hurricane to date.
Director Varrick Frissel dies on March 15, 1931, aboard The Viking while shooting action sequences for a new film.
A huge tidal wave hits England and the Netherlands in February 1953 and claims 2000 lives.
The Queen Mary plows through the Curacoa's stern, cutting the smaller ship in half.
On December 2nd 1959 the Malpasset Dam burst with explosive force and a wall of water swept through the Reyran Valley killing 421 people.
Workers at the BASF nitrate plant in Oppau, Germany prepare to break up gigantic blocks of chemical fertilizer with dynamite.
High winds blowing through the forests of Northern Ontario turned a small fire into an inferno.
The Malpasset Dam bursts, killing 421 people; the new Second Narrows Bridge collapses into the water.
Explosion at a nitrate plant in Germany; weather front traps a layer of air under fog in Belgium.
Dry temperatures and strong winds cause a destructive wall of fire that destroys townships and kills 71 people.
Examines the 1986 crash of two trains east of Hinton, Alberta.
A bus in rural Quebec plunged off an embankment killing 43 of it's 48 passengers.
Icy disasters
Deepwater horizon oil spill and more
Disater engineered
Explosions and meltdowns
Tsunamis and more
Water disasters