Ripple Rock

April 5, 1958 - Today was the day that Canada blew up an underwater mountain called Ripple Rock. It was one of the largest planned non-nuclear explosions of all time.

Ripple Rock was a troublesome, twin-peaked mountain that lurked just nine feet below a busy shipping channel. In records starting as far back as 1875, 114 people had died after their ships collided with the mountain.

In 1955 engineers started work on an ambitious project to destroy the hazard. It required the drilling of horizontal and vertical shafts into the mountain, then packing them with over a thousand metric tons of explosives.

When the button was finally pushed, a massive plume of rock and water blasted 300 meters into the sky and rained debris on both sides of the narrow passage. 36 feet had been shaved off the mountain.

The Ripple Rock explosion was one of the first news events that was broadcast live from coast to coast in Canada.