Six Thousand

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 69, Issue 49, 7 December 1948, Page 3

Six Thousand

Chinese Troops Killed • in Ship Explosion

(Rec. 10.30 a.m.) SHANGHAI, Dec. 6. It was revealed yesterday that 6000 Chinese troops were killed last month when ammunition on an unidentified merchantman blew up during the evacuation of Yingkow, Manchuria, says the Associated Press. The disaster is probably the greatest .single ship* tragedy of modern times. The Associated Press says it was attributed to the bursting of a boiler setting off ammunition and killing all aboard. A later message says that the report from China that as many as 6000 died in a ship explosion off Southern Manchuria in November now seems to have been exaggerated. Details are lacking, but the United Press Shanghai correspondent says that Nationalist forces have no ship capable of -carrying 6000 people, and that it. was probably a tank landing craft which blew up in the evacuation of Yingkow. This carried 1500 Communist prisoners, plus some Nationalists, a majority of whom were rescued. The United Press Nanking correspondent says that the military spokesman there had no official report of the accident, but believed the casualty report was “much exaggerated.”