From lightning to ammunition... explosions left thousands of victims

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Late Saturday night, Canadian Defense Minister David McGinty announced casualties following an accident at Wainwright Military Base in Alberta.

According to circulating details, the accident resulted in the death of 4 people and the injury of about 38 others, including 19 people whose injuries were described as serious.

While the incident brought to mind a series of disasters witnessed by military installations and sites throughout history, some of which left large numbers of victims, and the explosion of ammunition and gunpowder was one of the most prominent causes of a number of them.

On August 18, 1769, the Italian city of Brescia witnessed a massive explosion associated with the storage of large quantities of black powder. The city was then subject to the authority of the Republic of Venice, and it included a huge military warehouse in which about 2,800 barrels of gunpowder were collected inside one of the castles near the San Nazzaro gate.

On that day, while the city was experiencing extremely hot summer weather, it was struck by a thunderstorm. Lightning struck the castle, causing the gunpowder barrels to ignite and a massive explosion to occur.

The disaster resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 people, in addition to the destruction of large parts of the city.

On December 6, 1917, the city of Halifax, in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, witnessed a huge explosion that was classified as one of the most violent non-nuclear explosions in history.

Near the city's port, the French cargo ship "Mont Blanc", loaded with ammunition, collided with the Norwegian ship "Imo", causing a major fire to break out on board the French ship.

With the fire unable to be controlled, the Mont Blanc crew abandoned the ship, leaving the ammunition cargo on board. At approximately nine o'clock in the morning, the shipment exploded, destroying entire neighborhoods near the port.

While the disaster resulted in the deaths of about 2,000 people and the injury of nearly 9,000 others.

About a quarter of a century later, specifically on June 5, 1941, the city of Smederevo, located in present-day Serbia and then part of Yugoslavia, was exposed to a massive explosion that destroyed large parts of it.

During the German occupation, German forces stored large quantities of ammunition and military equipment inside a historic medieval castle near the city.

At approximately two o'clock in the afternoon, a small explosion occurred inside the citadel, followed by a massive explosion that destroyed parts of it and wreaked havoc on neighboring residential neighborhoods and other areas in the city center. Massive fires also broke out, destroying more buildings and residential areas.

While estimates of the number of casualties varied between 1,000 and 2,500 dead. To this day, the exact cause of the explosion remains a matter of dispute, with some accounts suggesting an act of sabotage, while others attributed the disaster to poor ammunition storage.