A TERRIFIC EXPLOSION.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15657, 1 August 1916, Page 8

A TERRIFIC EXPLOSION.

DISASTER IN AMERICA. MUNITIONS "WORKS BLOWN UP. GREAT LOSS OF LIFE. (By Cable.—Proas Association.—Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Gable Association.) NEW YORK, July 30. An explosion at the factories of the National Storage Company, which was manufacturing munitions for the Allies, wrecked the works, and did 7,000,000 dollars' worth of damage. Shell-laden barges drifting down the bay ablaze, bit the Ellis Island immigration depot, and exploded, causing one million dollars' worth of damage. The immigrants were hustled out of F.llig Island. The explosion was felt in five States. Two cars of shrapnel, surrounded "by flames, are unapproachable. La tor. A terrific explosion at two o'clock on Sunday morning shook all Manhattan, Brooklyn, and New Jersey cities. It was followed by another at 2.30. Many streets down town in New York were strewn with glass. / It is believed that a train of muntions intended for the Allies was blown up. The sky was lit with fires at Communipaw and Jersey City. Several deaths are reported, and enormous damage has been done to property. There is difficulty in obtaining information, owing to tho telephones and telegraphs 'being broken down.

The streets are crowded with, thousands of panic-stricken people.

The explosion is reported to have occurred in the munitions works of the ■National Storage Company, near Conimunipaw.

Firemen wero. fighting the flames, when a second explosion hurled them in all directions, killing thirty-three.

Oil ships near were set on fire, causing a tremendous conflagration.

All the warehouses iJT-tiie vicinity were wrecked.

It is stated that more than 600 tons of explosives for- the. Allies were blown up.

Hundreds of police and firemen are making frantic efforts to prevent tlie spread of the flames towards the Standard Oil Works, which are near at iiand. PANIC IN NEW YORK. x IMMENSE DAMAGE DONE.. NEW YORK, July 80. Details which are just coming to hand show that the fire first broke out among freight cars. It spread to tixe wliari, and blew up fourteen bargee loaded with high explosives. The National Storage works are located at Blackton Island. Seven of the company's warehouses were set on fire, and all the plant was wrecked. There was a tremendous pillar of fire when the barges blew up. The scenes in New York and Brooklyn were unprecedented. The force of the explosion was such that hundreds of people in all parts of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Bronx were hurled out of their beds. Thousands rushed from hotels . and apartment houses in their night clothes, and ran screaming into the streets. Two barges drifted down stream blazing from stem to stern. ! The injured who were removed from barges near the scene included many women and children. The. damage to the National plant alone is more than £1,000,000. The tota' damage is estimated at £15,000,000. Newspaper estimates of the dead' vary from fifty to three hundred, and the injured and missing number hundreds. Great consternation was caused on Ellis Island. After the shattering of the buildings by the explosion of the barges, the authorities called in ferry boats, into which the immigrants wero hustled, and hurried to Manhattan. Many were injured. Great damage was caused by fire, but fortunately the district is not a residential one, otherwise the loss of life would have been awful. The scene of the explosion is in the Lehigh Valley terminal, one of the main points from which munitions are loaded for the Allies. Tiains crossing Brooklyn Brides rocked. The windows were smashed, and passengers hurled to the floors. There was an indescribable rattle and crash of glass falling from a thousand windows. Buildings were torn down. The incidents recall, but on an infinitely bigger scale, the Zeppelin bomb raids in England. Terrified people rushed into doorways and other cover to escape falling glass. Many were injured. The number taken to hospital is not yet computed.

" Wall street, Fulton street, and other down town streets were like a sea of broken glass.

Morgan's buildings are without a window.

Cuests at the Waldorf, Astor, and other fashionable hotels rushed into the atroet.s in scanty attire.

Several men in a building adjoining the explosion are still unaccounted for and it is feafed that there are many bodies in the debris.

Tt is known that a number of workmen were blown to atoms.

As one barge drifted down stream the fire crept along the hull till it reached the shells, when the witer was lit up by a mass of flame shooting skywards.