NITRATE SHIP BLOWS UP

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25249, 30 July 1947, Page 7

NITRATE SHIP BLOWS UP

23 Killed, Many Hurt At Brest HEAVY DAMAGE IN CITY

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 p.m.) PARIS, July 29. The Norwegian ship Ocean Liberty (7174 tons), loaded with nitrate, exploded in Brest Harbour after a fire aboard. Telegraph and telephone communication with Brest was cut off as

a result of the explosion. The business quarter of Brest was set ablaze.

The latest reports say that 23 persons were killed, 100 seriously injured, and about 1000 slightly injured. The ship was sunk by gunfire from French destroyers. Mr Antoine Messager, DeputyMayor of Brest, in a cross-Channel telephone talk, said that nearly every building in the city was damaged. “The gasworks is so badly damaged that I fear we shall be without gas for a year,” he said. The ship’s captain, who was killed in the explosion, was an Englishman. The crew were saved. Most of the injured were cut by splinters of flying glass. The French Ministry of the Interior estimated the damage caused in the (rity at £300,000, which was “less serious than was first feared.”

“Tremors” Felt in England “Earth tremors” felt in Devon and South Cornwall were later discovered to have been caused by the explosion in the Ocean Liberty.

Reuters correspondent in Paris quotes a French Ministry of Transport official as saying that fire broke out at 4 p.m. in the Ocean Liberty. Efforts to master the fire were too slow, so the naval authorities decided to move the ship out of the harbour. Tugs began slowly to move the ship along the quayside towards the open sea.

As the Ocean Liberty, at 6.30 p.m., was passing a gasometer, a big explosion took place. It was followed by huge clouds of orange smoke rising over the harbour. The smoke came from the docks near an arsenal. A French Navy vessel, to stop the Ocean Liberty drifting towards the arsenal fired shots into each side of her hull to flood her.

The explosion ignited the Brest gasworks and an oil. depot. These outbreaks were not brought under control for some hours. The blast from the explosion knocked down houses. First aid crews were mobilised in nearby districts to bring medical ’assistance to the wounded.

Many families evacuated their homes, fearing a disaster like that'of Texas City in April. The Ocean Liberty was carrying nitrate of ammonia in a mixed cargo from New York. She was bound for Antwerp from America, but went to Brest because of the Belgian dockers’ strike.

A fire in a ship carrying nitrate of ammonia caused the disaster at Texas City, on the Gulf of Mexico, last April. The town was practically wiped off the map by a series of explosions and fires, in which more than 500 people were killed and 3000 injured. With a roar that shook the coast Tor miles, the freighter, Grand Camp, which was carrying a cargo of nitrate of ammonia, fertiliser and cotton, exploded just as fireman were attacking the blaze. This touched off a series of great explosions in the Monsanto Chemical Company’s plant. Windows in Galveston, 12 miles away, were cracked in this blast. Flaming debris, thrown up by the explosions, set build- ( ings on fire, and then a score or more big oil tanks either exploded or burst into flames. The freighter. High Flyer, then blew up, and a third vessel, the Wilson B. Keene, sank at her moorings. The fires were dying down by April 18, two days after the first explosion. Seventy blocks of Texas City had Jjeen levelled. It was stated at the time that ammonium nitrate, which normally was not dangerous, could explode with the force of TNT UNO CONFERENCE ON TRADE MEETING AT HAVANA ON NOVEMBER 21 (Rec, 10 p.m.) NEW YORK, July 28. The United Nations Economic and Social Council has decided that the United Nations conference on trade and employment will be held at Havana on November 21. GERMAN COAL INDUSTRY STATEMENT BY RUHR MINERS (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, July 28. A message from Essen says that the coalminers’ union has appealed, on the eve of the Ruhr coal talks in Washington. for an early decision about the future status of the German coal industry. The miners, in a statement, gave a warning against “returning the mines to. their previous owners or any other private capitalistic successors.” They added that they maintained their demands for socialisation.

ZONAL TRADE IN • GERMANY REPORTED FAILURE OF SOVTET-U.S. TALKS

(Rec. 7 p.m.) HAMBURG, July 28. The “Neu Zeitung,” the official Ger-man-language newspaper of the American Military Government, says •that discussions on a trade agreement with the Soviet zone of Germany have failed because the capacity of industry in the eastern zone of Germany is not at present sufficient to fulfil the obligations of a trade agreement in addition to paying reparations.