A b s t r a c t

CANADIAN DISASTERS - AN HISTORICAL SURVEY

Robert L. Jones

The major Canadian disasters from the 1500s to date are identified by cause and type. General disaster criteria are defined. Twenty or more deaths occurring at one time is the primary criterion. The other principal criterion is to include events which have occurred within Canada, and Newfoundland before 1949, and offshore inside the 200-mile economic zone. Events such as wars, epidemics and battles between natives and European settlers during colonization have been excluded. These criteria limit the events which are discussed to a manageable number.

The results of an expanded literature search are presented and a brief description of some of the disasters is given. The weather-related factor is determined. An historical perspective is discussed with a view to illustrating the disasters which were common in early Canadian history, and those which have occurred in modern times. Conclusions are drawn as to which types of natural and man-made disasters are likely to occur in Canada in the future.

In the 18 years since original publication, (Table 5 ref. Nh) the database has more than doubled in size from 95 events in 1990 to 218. The updated version of the paper is published on the World Wide Web at: http://web.ncf.ca/jonesb/DisasterPaper/disasterpaper.html

KEY WORDS: disasters, Canadian disasters, weather-related disasters

C A N A D I A N D I S A S T E R S

A N H I S T O R I C A L S U R V E Y

METHODOLOGY

The first task was to define a disaster for analysis purposes. This was followed by an intensive literature search. Implications of weather- and / or climate-related phenomena were also noted and recorded during the search. All disasters appeared in at least one reference, with recent events taken from newspaper coverage. Finally, conclusions were drawn about the weather-related disasters as compared to the other disasters found in the references.

In order to limit the number of events to be included in the survey, the primary disaster criteria were defined as a single event, occurring at one time (no more than the order of a few days), within Canadian (and Newfoundland, before 1949) territory out to the 200-mile economic zone offshore, in which loss of life was 20 or more persons. The search identified and counted all such events except wars and epidemics. The early colonization battles with aboriginals and the war of 1812 with the United States were excluded. In all, 218 disasters have been identified which met these criteria.

Several major epidemics were found but not counted in the primary list. Epidemics have by far the highest death tolls of all Canadian disasters and those found in the references are listed in Table 2. The worst of these were the Spanish influenza epidemic which killed between 30,000 and 50,000 Canadians in the last five months of 1918; the 1862 smallpox epidemic which killed at least 20,000; and another smallpox epidemic in 1885 which killed almost 6,000 in Montreal.

In a short communication such as this, the scope cannot hope to extend to comparisons of Canadian disasters with those in other countries. Further, the scope did not include economic or property loss criteria.

DISCUSSION AND FINDINGS

Major Findings

Table 1 lists the 218 Canadian disasters which met the above criteria and which were found in the references, listed in Table 5 at the end of the paper. Fifty-eight of these disasters occurred prior to Canada's Confederation in 1867. It is felt that there may be several unidentified disasters in that early period but, on the other hand, the period from 1867 to date may well include most of the events where at least 20 persons lost their lives. It is worth noting that the significant loss of life in the large number of marine disasters in the period around the time of Confederation was the catalyst which caused the federal government to found the Canadian Weather Service with a grant to Professor George T. Kingston in 1871.

Table 2 lists 97 disasters which did not meet all the criteria, but were reported in the references. Several were just short of the 20-death criterion, but were spectacular in nature. Others happened outside the 200-mile limit, but had distinctive "Canadian" characteristics such as the 1985 Air India crash over the North Atlantic Ocean and the 2001World Trade Centre attacks which killed 25 Canadians. Still others met the criteria, but occurred over periods of time from a few months to a decade or more. Finally, Table 2 includes some wartime events.

Given sets of data such as Tables 1 and 2, many conclusions can be inferred. Dealing with the weather-related factor first, 49% of the disasters were found to be weather-related, whether or not they met the criteria. Of the remainder, 44% were not weather-related and the effect of the weather could not be determined from 7% of the disasters found. A strict definition of the weather-related factor is not possible in this examination. Based upon each event description in the references, a subjective decision was made on this factor, depending on the way the incident was described.

Some authors have stated that weather-related disasters have been increasing markedly in recent years. A survey of the 36 disasters in both Tables 1 and 2 since 1986 (giving two decades of data), shows that 53% were weather-related, 44% not weather-related and there was one disaster where the weather-related factor was uncertain. When the many updates to the original published paper are considered, the weather-related factor has remained constant with weather being involved in about half of the disasters.

Marine and Transportation Events

There were interesting findings regarding marine disasters. Over 35% of all the disasters occurred at sea, or on the Great Lakes, and 90% of these were weather-related. As expected, many of these marine disasters did not occur in modern times and, to a degree, land transportation and aviation disasters are beginning to replace the ship/marine disasters. Clearly, when the number of aviation, train and bus accidents are added, transportation in all forms has been, and still is, the most common cause of major Canadian disasters.

Dates and Frequency of Disasters Meeting Criteria

Starting with 1801-1810, the rate of change with time of the numbers of people dying each decade in major disasters was examined. Figure 1 shows the total number of deaths per decade.

Figure 1

It is evident that, although the nation's population has been rising steadily since colonization, the number of people killed in major disasters has been gradually dropping. The very large anomaly in the 1911-1920 decade was caused by the 1917 explosion of a munitions ship in Halifax Harbour and by the collision of two ships off Rimouski. These two events make the 1911-1920 decade Canada's deadliest by far in terms of disasters at home.

Using Statistics Canada's latest population data (census of 2006, with projection to 2011), Figure 2 below shows the number of deaths per million population per decade. Figure 2 begins with the 1851 census, the earliest accurate census.

Figure 2

The same decadal data were also used to determine that, on average, there was about one major disaster per year. The rate approaches two disasters per year in the three decades from 1891 to 1920, in agreement with the above anomaly for 1911-1920.

Categories of Disasters

The Journal of Natural Hazards recognizes the following hazards: atmospheric (weather and climatological), earthquakes, erosion, floods, droughts, landslides, man-made and technological, oceanographic (waves and storm surges), snow/avalanches/ice, tsunamis and volcanoes.

It is interesting to note that Canada has experienced at least one disaster in each of the categories listed in the Journal, with two exceptions: storm surges and volcanoes, and that the two of the three most common Canadian disasters do not fall exactly into any of the classifications listed. They are shipwrecks and fires. Obviously, the shipwrecks are, in many cases, the result of marine (wave) hazards, but the fires do not seem to have a place in the hazards phenomena. A classification for fire should be added. Table 3 lists the disasters by category and frequency.

Geographical Distribution

The geographic nature of the disasters was examined. Table 4 shows their distribution by Canadian province. Of the 28 events that could not be assigned to a specific province, 10 occurred in more than one province and the remaining 18 were Table 2 items that occurred outside the country. Generally, the locations reflect the population density with the many disasters occurring along the East Coast and in the St. Lawrence River area. On land, they were centred near the large population centres of eastern Canada. Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island are the provinces with the fewest disasters (and the Arctic territories).

Manitoba had a train wreck at Dugald in 1947 which caused 40 deaths and several Red River floods which had high economic losses but very few fatalities. PEI's only disaster was the 1851 "Yankee Gale" which sunk 70 US ships nearby and taking up to 300 lives. Major Canadian cities which have never had a disaster meeting the criteria are Ottawa, Saskatoon and Calgary.

There were only four occurrences in the Canadian Arctic found in the references:

the Rea Point NWT Pan Arctic Electra crash in 1974 in which 32 oil and gas workers lost their lives;
the loss of the Franklin expedition in Nunavut (NU) where 129 officers and crew of "HMS Erebus" and "HMS Terror" perished over the two-year period 1847 to 1848;
the 1991 Hercules crash near Alert NU with the loss of 18 lives; and
the crash in the Yukon, in 1950, of a U.S. military transport plane with 44 persons aboard.

Other Findings of Interest

Canada's best known and worst disaster, in terms of lives lost at one time, is undoubtedly the Halifax Explosion of 1917. It had the highest death toll (nearly 2,000), was documented in the most references, and was the only Canadian disaster meeting the criteria to appear in the Guinness Book of Records.

Only one other disaster, meeting the criteria, killed over 1,000 people. This was the collision of the ships "Empress of Ireland" and "Storstad" near Rimouski in 1914. A 1775 storm off Newfoundland reportedly killed 4,000, presumably in ships lost offshore (only reference was the Canadian Weather Trivia Calendar). Later, a description of this storm was found in a St. John's newspaper which indicates the approximate death toll of 300 and another researcher set the toll at 400, following detailed study.

The 1903 Frank Slide at Turtle Mountain AB which killed 70 people is mentioned in nine references, the highest number, making it arguably as well known as the Halifax Explosion.

In terms of total loss of life, the 1918 influenza epidemic which claimed between 30,000 and 50,000 Canadians in five months ranks as Canada's worst disaster (although epidemics were excluded from the disaster criteria of this paper).

Deaths due to wars were originally excluded from the paper. Because Canada has had few major battles on home soil or in nearby seas, two war actions are now reported in Table 2: The 1942 sinking of the ferry "Caribou" by a German U-boat off the Newfoundland coast, and the disappearance of a Newfoundland fishing schooner in 1914 which was attributed to hitting a mine.

Several disasters recurred at the same place. There were six wrecks near Sable Island, NS; four disasters in the Crowsnest Pass border area of Alberta/B.C. (mines and landslide); three air crashes near Gander NL; three or more disasters at coal mines in Nanaimo and Springhill, and in Lower Quebec City due to rock falls; and two at the site of the Quebec Bridge.

In another coincidence, senior citizens died in almost-identical bus crashes on the same steep hill near St. Joseph de la Rive (aka Les éboulements), Quebec; 13 deaths in 1974; 43 deaths in 1997.

Twenty-eight people were killed in 1929 when a tsunami struck Newfoundland's Burin Peninsula following an earthquake in the Grand Banks area. This event was Canada's only tsunami or earthquake disaster.

The 1912 Regina Tornado whch killed between 28 and 30 people, and the 1987 Edmonton Tornado which resulted in 27 deaths, are the two deadliest Canadian tornado events.

While there have been many lightning strikes which kill one or two people at a time, there was only one major disaster directly caused by lightning (not including forest fires). The Weather Trivia Calendar reports that a freighter, "The John B. King", loaded with explosives was struck by lightning in the St. Lawrence River in 1930. Thirty crewmen died in the resulting explosion.

No mine disasters have been placed in the weather-related category. However, following the Westray NS accident in 1992, studies of ambient atmospheric pressure in the areas of mine entrances indicate changing atmospheric pressure may be a contributing factor involved in the build-up of methane gas in mines. Methane gas is believed to be the major cause of several coal mine disasters reported in this paper.

Many of the disasters are reported in several of the references. They are the most familiar "household word" disasters. In order of date, the ones found in eight or more references are:

The Frank Slide, Turtle Mountain, Alberta (1903);
"Empress of Ireland" and "Storstad" Collision near Rimouski (1914);
Halifax Explosion (1917);
Burin Peninsula Tsunami (1929);
Hurricane Hazel (1954);
Ste. Thérèse TCA DC8 Air Crash (1963);
Toronto Air Canada DC8 Crash (1970);
"Ocean Ranger" Sinking (1982);
"Arrow" DC8 Crash at Gander, Newfoundland (1985);
Ice Storm in Eastern Canada (1998)

Canada has not had a disaster meeting the criteria since 1998 (when there were three). Since 1950, until the last disaster which met the criteria, Canada has averaged almost exactly one disaster per year. The fact that no disasters have occurred in the 11 years from 1998 to date confirms that mitigation efforts by public and private agencies are working.

SUMMARY

Despite the various events uncovered during this research, it is evident from comparisons to other countries that Canada gets off rather lightly in major disasters. Canada has not been subject to the disastrous earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, cyclones, typhoons and floods which still regularly take thousands of lives in countries like China, Bangladesh and Indonesia. Even the United States has more weather-related disasters because its larger population is subjected to far more hurricanes than Canada, and the USA is the most tornado-prone country in the world.

UPDATE NOTES

Since the final acceptance for publication of this paper in 1991, 123 new disasters meeting the criteria have been added to Table 1 and 65 new disasters have been added to Table 2. As well, about 45 new References have been added to Table 5.

The Ice Storm of January 1998, which affected Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime provinces, has been identified by media and other commentators as the worst Canadian natural disaster. Abley (Reference Ic, p. 11) reports that the Ice Storm, a once-in-a-lifetime event, was the most destructive weather disaster in Canada's recorded history. In the first 10 days following the storm, which deposited from 50 to 100 mm. of ice on hydro wires, trees and outdoor structures, 35 persons died directly as a result of the storm (22 in Quebec; four in Ontario; six in New York state; and three in Maine). Most of these deaths were caused by effects of long periods without electricity, such as carbon monoxide poisoning from heaters, or hypothermia.

World Wide Web (WWW) sites are increasingly quoted as references. Several are now linked to this Web version of the paper. By 2007, Wikipedia and other Web databases became sufficiently complete that most, if not all, the disasters listed may be easily found. As well, Google on-line searches will yield additional information on almost every disaster. Further, many of the search results from both sources are referenced and linked back to this paper. Wikipedia has been added as Reference Wi in Table 5 but it has not be shown in all the references columns of the tables.

The author is aware of the transient nature and unreliability of material placed on the Web, therefore as much care as possible is being taken before accepting Web references. As well many of the Web lists of disasters now cross reference each other, suggesting that more care is now needed to ensure correct information is found. With each update of the paper, Web site references are verified to ensure they are still active. In 2009, a "last accessed date" has been added to the web references, further ensuring the sites are reachable.

Although the paper has been reorganized since being published, no major changes in abstract, findings or conclusions have been made. It is hoped that the latest available information will ensure that the Web version of the paper is as complete as possible.

Robert C. Parsons of Grand Bank NL has authored several books detailing many East Coast marine losses. In 1999, twelve new items from his books were added, eleven of which met the criteria (Reference Pa). In 2002, six new items from a Web database of pre-Confederation shipwrecks by Gilbert Bossé of Little Métis (near Rimouski) QC were added.

Many other additions to the tables have been due to work by colleague, Dr. John D. Reid, who is studying historical meteorological events. Dr. Reid's additions include marine events that met the criteria and occurred mainly in the 19th century.

Following a Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Congress in Winnipeg in May 2001, which had a theme of "Extreme Weather", three major new sources emerged which contributed to the significant update in July 2001. It is now thought that a greater percentage than before of all Canadian disasters are now listed in the tables. Considerable cross references, cross checks and additional items were added with thanks to:

Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada Disaster Database (Reference O);

A book published in 2000, Disaster Canada by Janet Looker (Reference L); and

Web database by Richard Kebabjian, covering the world's plane crashes from 1908 to date (Reference K).

Robert L. Jones

Times of the updates: December 1992; March 1993; July 1993; September 1993; September 1993; December 1994; April 1996; July 1996; October 1997; March 1998; June 1998; November 1998; December 1998; September 1999; March 2000; July 2000; January 2001; July/August 2001; (minor updates) October and December 2001; February 2002; May 2003; August 2003; April 2004; December 2004; October 2005; January and July 2007; January 2008, February and October 2009.