There have been many large non-nuclear explosions, but it’s impossible to determine the largest. The Halifax explosion, Texas City Disaster, British Bang, Small-Scale Military Test, and Port Chicago Disaster are among the largest. The Halifax explosion killed 2,000 people and destroyed the port. The British Bang and Minor Scale were military tests, while the Texas City and Port Chicago disasters were ship explosions. These non-nuclear explosions are small compared to modern nuclear weapons.
Since the invention of high explosives, there have been numerous powerful non-nuclear explosions that have killed or injured more than 1,000 people at a time. Since measuring the exact magnitude of an explosion is impossible without accurate measurements, and most large non-nuclear explosions are actually accidental, it is impossible to tell which of these explosions is the largest. Often, the amount of explosives detonated is known, but the size of an explosion cannot be calculated directly from the weight of the explosives alone, so an accurate classification scheme is impossible.
There are five major non-nuclear explosions that many agree are among the largest, if not the largest:
The Halifax explosion (1917, estimated equivalent to 2.9 kilotons (kt) of TNT)
The Texas City Disaster (1947, 2 – 4 kt)
The “British Bang” military test on Heligoland in the North Sea (1947, 4 kt)
The Small-Scale Military Test in New Mexico (1985, 4 kt)
The Port Chicago Disaster (1944, 5 kt)
The Halifax explosion, which occurred on December 6, 1917, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, was caused by the collision of a French merchant ship carrying 5.8 million pounds (2,653 tons) of explosives with a Norwegian vessel. The vessel was fully loaded and carrying explosives for shipment to Europe for use in World War I. The resulting non-nuclear explosion was about one-third the strength of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. About 2,000 people, mostly Canadians, died and 9,000 were injured. The whole port was destroyed.
The British Bang and Minor Scale non-nuclear explosions were military tests, both designed to simulate nuclear explosions. Both involved several thousand tons of explosives and had a similar magnitude to the Halifax blast, but no one was injured. The British Bang was carried out on the island of Heligoland, while Minor Scale was conducted at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. During Minor Scale, 9.6 million pounds (4,350 tons) of high explosive were detonated.
Both the Texas City disaster and the Port Chicago disaster were tragic repetitions of the same general formula of the Halifax disaster. Fully laden ships exploded while in port, killing several hundred people in both incidents. While these non-nuclear explosions may have looked very extreme to those captured in the blast, they are very small compared to the explosions produced by modern nuclear weapons.
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