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Five major investigations were commissioned, but to little avail. Between 1921 and 1926, 138 townships in southern Alberta, comprising nearly 3.2 million acres (1.3 million ha), lost at least 55% of their population; by 1926 80% of the Tilley-East country was permanently evacuated.

​The spectacular suspension bridge across the Peace River south of Fort St. John, British Columbia, was opened in the summer of 1943, replacing a ferry crossing on the Alaska Highway.

Numerous tragedies have unfolded on Canadian roads and highways, the deadliest being a bus crash that killed 44 people in Quebec in 1997. Despite the death toll in such headline-grabbing disasters, Canada’s motor vehicle fatality and injury rates are steadily declining, thanks to engineering improvements in vehicles, and the increasing promotion and awareness of safe driving practices.

​HMCS Kootenay was a destroyer in the Canadian Navy. In 1969, an accident at sea killed 9 sailors and injured 53 others. It was the worst peacetime disaster in the history of the navy.

Coal mining involves deep workings, soft rock, dust, poisonous and flammable gases, explosives, machinery, transport and ventilation systems, and, in early times, open-flame lamps. Each has been a factor in the many Canadian coal mine tragedies, the worst of which are detailed here.

​Railway accidents may result from a number of situations, including improper track beds, metal fatigue, fire, flawed rails, human error and frail bridges.

The 1917 Halifax Explosion is well-known as the biggest human-made explosion in the pre-atomic era. The event was also the largest mass-blinding in Canadian history and it played a crucial role in the founding of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB). (See also Blindness and Visual Impairment.)

An explosion on 9 May 1992, deep inside the Westray Mine in Plymouth, Nova Scotia killed 26 underground miners. The mine had been open less than eight months. A public inquiry blamed mine management, bureaucrats and politicians for a tragedy “that should have been prevented.” As a result of the disaster, in 2004 Parliament passed Bill C-45 imposing criminal liability on corporations and executives that fail to ensure a safe workplace.

The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.

The Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Titanic was a British luxury passenger liner that sank on its maiden transatlantic voyage. At approximately 11:40 p.m. on 14 April, 1912, about 740 km south of Newfoundland, Titanic’s starboard (right) side scraped along an iceberg. The collision ruptured several watertight compartments. Water poured in, but the first lifeboat was not launched until an hour later. Approximately two-thirds of the liner’s passengers and crew died. Titanic’s sinking was one of the worst marine disasters in history and remains firmly embedded in popular culture today.

The ice storm of 1998 was one of the largest natural disasters in Canadian history. Between 4 and 10 January 1998, sections of the St. Lawrence Valley from Kingston to Québec’s Eastern Townships received up to 100 mm of ice pellets and freezing rain — more than double the icy precipitation normally received in those areas in a whole year. The storm claimed as many as 35 lives, injured 945, and resulted in the temporary displacement of 600,000 people. Several roads were shut down and massive power outages occurred, cutting off electricity for nearly 1.4 million customers in Québec and over 230,000 in eastern Ontario. The total financial cost of the storm is estimated at $5.4 billion.

The terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001 had an immediate and profound impact on Canada. Twenty-four Canadians died in what became known as the "9/11" attacks. When the US closed its airspace, hundreds of planes carrying thousands of passengers were diverted to Canadian airports. In the weeks following, Canada passed controversial anti-terrorism laws and sent its first troops to Afghanistan as part of the “War on Terror.”