FRENCH NAVAL DISASTER.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 64, 15 March 1907, Page 5

FRENCH NAVAL DISASTER.

118 KILLED AND MISSING.

EXTENT OF THE DAMAGE. ALLEGATIONS OF MALEVOLENCE. FRENCH PARLIAMENT ADJOURNS. (By Cable. —Press Association.—Copyrfeht.) (Received 7.46 ajn.) rAEIS, March 14. The Missiessy dock basin has been reemptied, and the battleship Jena is now lying on blocks supported by shores. The fore part of the vessel is intact., but the after part is seriously damaged.

An enormous hole in the battleship's bottom to starboard enabled the combustible gases to escape, otherwise she must have been completely destroyed. The armour, the screws, and the rudder are quite uninjured, but the iron floorings have been twisted into strange shapes. The killed and missing are now estimated at 118.

All the European rulers have telejrraphed their sympathy to M. -b'allieres, President of the Republic.

In debate in the Chamber of Deputies it was suggested that the disaster was due to malevolence.

While the shattering of the dock-gates flooded the Jena's interior and prevented the explosion of the principal magazine, it also drowned the helpless wounded on the lower decks.

It is expected that the Jena will be repaired for coast defence, or for training purposes. Both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate adjourned to-day to mark their sorrow for the Jena disaster. (Received SJ24 a-m.) PARIS, March 14. Twenty-nine of the Jena's crew have died in hospital. Fifty corpses were found piled up in one passage.