SHIP BLOWN APART

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 148, 19 March 1931, Page 9

SHIP BLOWN APART

Disaster in Icy Region MYSTERY EXPLOSION Survivors’ Trying Ordeal PARTY REACHES ISLAND By Telegraph— Press Association—Copyright (Rec. March 18, 8 p.m.) St. John’s, March 17. Captain Abram Kean and 117 men of the sealing steamer Viking, which exploded and sank off Horse Island on Sunday night with a loss of some 25 lives, have reached the island. A message from Horse Island states that the tiny settlement teemed on Tuesday night with six scores of officers and men of the ill-fated sealer ashore after 86 hours of suffering since the ship was blown to pieces by the explosion on Sunday. Rescue ships have arrived with several survivors found floating in the wreckage. These included Russell Harry Sargent, an explorer; Captain W. Kennedy, navigator; and the wireless officer, C. King, all previously believed to have perished. Twenty-one Still Missing. Hope is entertained that others may be found of the twenty-one still missing. Searchers covered a wide area of ice on Tuesday, but found no trace of Varick Frissell, a young New Yorker, making sound movies, and his companion, A. E. Penrod, a camera man. Others still missing are: J. Murphy, chief engineer. F. Parnell, second engineer; H. Hanniford, third engineer; Dr. W. J. Roach, ship’s physician, and S. Ulett, steward. The mate, Alfred Kean, is still on the lee with a b.4'. en leg. A missing dory, containing seven men, five appearing badly hurt, was seen at daylight on Tuesday five miles off, labouring to reach Horse Island. Success seemed doubtful. Captain Hurled 12 Feet. Thorp are only five houses on the island, and the inhabitants are lodging the rescued. There will be no supplies until the arrival of the rescue ship, which is expected on Tuesday afternoon. Captain Kean is in a weak condition. He'was on the bridge at the time, and stated that he was hurled twelve feet on to the ice and injured. Most of the men were in their berths, although a few had retired. In the terrific explosion from an unexplained cause many were thrown from their berths and others to the deck of the ship, which was in darkness. The men forward apparently escaped. The explosion appeared to tear the after portion to pieces. In the shadow of light of the night motionless forms were seen on Ice-floes and cries for help heard. Fire broke out These advices reached here by wireless' from the wireless operator on the island. Members of the Varick Frissell expedition, which left New York last January to make a photographic and sound record of the Labrador sealers at work capturing seals on ice floes, 100 miles off the coast of Labrador, returned to New York on May 15, said the “New York Times” recently. Mr. Frissell first witnessed the dangers that confront the sealers when he made the trip as a member of the crew of a sealing vessel two years ago. Upon his return he raised sufficient capital to finance his own expedition. Captain Robert A. Bartlett, who captained Peary’s expedition to the North Pole in 1909, acted as skipper of the boat chartered by Frissell. George Melford, who directed the expedition, said that 150,000 feet of film were used. Most of the scenes were taken in the vicinity of Greenley Island, where the Bremen landed. The sealing vessels set out from the Labrador coast in time to capture the young seals, which are nearly all born on the same day in March, he said, The catch this year amounted to 212,000. The ship was out of sight of land for two months.