City of Ruins: The Halifax Explosion (2003)

On the morning of December 6th 1917, the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia was a bustling, lively place. But in less than a second, Halifax became the center of a tragedy like no other in the history of this country, and of a tragedy unparalleled in the history of this continent. The Halifax Harbour explosion was the greatest known man-made explosion until the advent of the atomic bomb. And yet, outside of Nova Scotia, the story of the Halifax explosion is barely known. City of Ruins constructs a dramatic and moving narrative of the devastating event by intertwining heart-wrenching memories from survivors with archival news footage and still photography. Newsreel cameras rushed to film the search for the living amidst the smoldering ruins, while still cameras recorded the post-explosion wasteland, the faces of the living and the dead, and the re-building of the city of ruins. It is a story of horror, of heroes, and of scapegoats. It is a story of the day the war came home.