LIKE AN EARTHQUAKE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 807, 3 May 1910, Page 5

LIKE AN EARTHQUAKE.

KOBE EXPLOSION, Br Teleeraph-Press Association-OopTriirht . (Bee. May 2, 9.25 p.m.) Sydney, May 2. Details are to hand of the explosion in the harbour of Kobe, Japan (cabled April 14), caused by a fire aboard Nickles and Company's powder hulk, on which' were 300U cases of dynamite, 50 oases of detonators, and 2300 cases of gelignite. There were three explosions olosely following one' another. The whole' city was violently shaken as by a severe earthquake, while wrecked and damaged houses on every hand gave an impression that Kobe had been swept by a typhoon. The amount of damage, which extends over a very widu urea, cannot bo estimated. Many houses in the immediate vicinity of the disaster were totally wrecked or badly damaged. Scarcely a house in the foreign settlement or on the hill has not broken windows or doors, or,some other ovldeuce of thu tremendous force of the explosions. Three other lighters with dynamite aboard were lying near the hulk which blew up. They were eo badly damaged by the explosion that they' became waterlogged, and luckily tieir dynamite did not explode. Only one life was loft—ihat of a watchman aboard the ill-fated hulk—though numbers wore injured, including passengers on Hie tramway. The explosion was heard and felt for miles around.