TERRIBLE RAILWAY DISASTER IN GERMANY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3836, 1 November 1883, Page 4

TERRIBLE RAILWAY DISASTER IN GERMANY.

Heart mid in;; , and appalling are but weak words fo "describe Avhntniust lie callu<l a railway' "accident," which occurred near Berlin nil tho night of September 2nd, and rosulted in the immediate death of about 40 persons, comprising 17 men, IS women, and four children, and the more or less serious wounding of many others. An old .soldier who witnessed the catastrophe said that he had boon present at six pitched battles, and a variety of minor engagement:-), but that all the scenes of carnage he had ever beheld were surpassed by that upon which ho looked yesterday. The sad story is soon told. Stoglitz, at the station of which tlio accident happened, is a village, or fownlol, about Ilireo miles from Berlin, on the Pofsdam-Magdeburg-Cologno Railway lines ; and tho fine Sunday weather had templed to the place, as lo nil other suburban resorts, crowds of pleasuro seekers of lite poorer class, including some patriotic societies, to celebrate the anniversary of Sedan. At the close of the day the station was besieged by several hundreds of tho excursionists, eager to get home by the first train from Potsdam. The Htation lit Stoglit/: is furnished with insufficient wailing accommodation, and passengers going to Berlin have to cross the rails in order to enter the up trains. Until the up trains arrive it is usual to detain Berlm-boundjiassengers on the down platform by menus of a. nioveablo barrier, Hiich as is used at most crossings, and behind this barrier last night, towards 10 o'clock. an impatient crowd of 200 or JiOO people were waiting for I he train that was to take them home to Berlin. The train arrived, and, eager to •secure scats, the excursionists either burst, or jumped, or pushed back the barrier poles, and began to stream across the rails like a flock of shunp. This they did in spite of the shouts, remonstrances, and lantern-waving of the railway oflicials— of whom, however, it is said there was an altogether insufficient number—who saw, to their horror, that the Cologne express from Berlin was tearing down upon the station at the rate of a kilometre per minute. There was one heartrending, and unanimous shriek which silenced even the thunder of the approaching wheels, tho heavy engine dashed in among the Avedged and struggling mass, and in another instant the lino was strewn with tho horribly mutilated and dismembered bodies of some forty human beings. The catastrophe was as appalling as it ■was unique. -Words could not describe the fiueno of carnage which presented itself after the express, its wheels clogged with ghastly proofs of (ho ruin it had worked, had passed the fatal spot. Surely never had Juggernaut's ear a more ghastly harvest of sacrificed victims. The stationmaster, a strong man, fainted away at tho sight ; and tho driver of the express was so .shaken by tho spectacle that he had to leave his engine at Potsdam. Some of the corpses were mangled and mutilated beyond nil possible recognition. One poor young mother had both her legs cut off, and gave birth to a child in her dying agonies. The fragments of the dead Avcro gathered together and laid out in one of the waitingrooms, and a sort of panic-terror spread over tho place. Medical help was procured from all sides, but a good many cases A\-ere beyond the reach of surgery.—Times.