A GREAT DISASTER.

Auckland Star, Volume XX, Issue 244, 14 October 1889, Page 3

A GREAT DISASTER.

SEVERAL HUNDRED LIVES LOST.

ONE THOUSAND PEOPLE INJURED.

Antwerp, September 6.—A terrible catastrophe, tho consequences of which areyet incalculable, took place at Antwerp this afternoon. At 2.15 o'clock a terrific explosion wa3 heard, even as far as Ghenb. The whole town was shaken, and immediately afterward it seemed as though a rain of glass was falling over the surrounding country. There, is not a whole window in Antwerp. Even the magnificent stained glass windows of the cathedral were destroyed. The towns people were panic-stricken. It was ab first thought that an earthquake had taken place, but. suddenly the sun, which was shining brightly, was obscured by an impenetrable cloud of smoke, tinned by the red glare of a great fire. Ib was near the port and jusi behind the dry docks that the catastrophe took plate, in a powder magazine belonging to M. Corvillian, a merchant, who had recently purchased 40,000,000 old cartridges, intending to sell the powder. His workpeople, over 100 in number, more than half of them being women, were occupied in the task of opening these cartridges when the explosion took place. To what it is due there is very little hope of discovering, for not one of -M. Corvillian's employees has as yet been found alive. In fact, not a eingle. corpse has been found intact.

Ib was not only in the Gorvillian factory that lives were lost! A large number of persons were also more or less severely wounded by pieces of glass, and the roofs of several houses fell in. For a great distance all around the ground was strewn with cartridges and debris of all kinds. All was not over yet, however. A fow momenta affcer the explosion a vast sheet of flame leaped up into the sky, and it was seen that a petroleum warehouse not far from the powder magazine was on fire. Even in broad daylight the blaze of 40,000 barrels of petroleum on fire was visible at a distance of over thirty miles at Brussels.. Then the Maison Hydraulique of Antwerp, which furnishes the motive power for all the cranes and other machines of the porb, suddenly gave way and became a heap of ruins. Everywhere in the streets were wounded persons, and at frequent intervals one came across par human frames, such as legs and arms. The petroleum mart is still ablaze, and the heat is so great that it is impossible to approach within several hundred yards of the conflagration. The spectacle is terribly superb, and thore is nothing in recent history that can be compared to it save, the scene which Paris presented during the last days of the Commune and the great fire in Chicago. The fire has spread in all direction* in the city. Warehouses in which 20,000 to 25,000 barrels of petroleum are stored are on fire, as are many of the vessels, in the docks. The Scheldt resembles a river of fire. The whole of the garrison and a large pnrb of the male population of the town are aiding the firemen, but their efforts are simply useless. It is impossible even roughly to estimate the number of persons killed, bub suppositions range from 200 to 400, while there are certainly 1,000 persons injured. The latost information is that tbereare 150 half-burned corpses in the hospitals. The population is in a state of panic, for though the fire at present is confined to the neighbourhood of the port, it could scarcely be prevented from gaining the town were the wind to turn to the north.

Midnight.—The latest estimate is that there are 300 killed and about l.OOff wounded. The explosions continue. At the American docks all the ships have been saved, owing to the favourable direction of the wind.