TERRIFIC EXPLOSION

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 3, 5 January 1937, Page 6

TERRIFIC EXPLOSION

TUG DISAPPEARS ANOTHER ONE DAMAGED (From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, December 31. Following a terrific and mysteriou; explosion, the 50-ton tug Undine san!< at a wharf in Sydney Harbour, ani another tug, Bustler, berthed alongsidt it, was badly damaged. Two men or board each tug were injured, the twe on the Undine, Captain Edward Mer chant, 73, and Norman Dean, 46, bein? blown many feet into the air. It i; believed that the bursting of the Undine's boiler was the cause of th< explosion. It was Dean's second narrow escapc from a harbour disaster He was i member of the crew of the ferry Grey clifl'e when it was rammed and sun!< by the liner Tahiti in November, 1927 and on that occasion was sent to th< harbour depths. This time he wai projected towards the sky. "I was standing outside the engine room of the Undine," said Dean. "There was a deafening roar, and I seemec to whirl up and up in a sphere o: black mud. I was still dazed when : struck the water, but managed to reach a pile, from where I was rescued, touched harbour bottom when Greycliffe went down. Each expert ence was as bad as the other." Captain Merchant said: "I had jus" left the engine-room and was coilins a rope forward when the explosion oc curred. I was sky-rocketed into th« air, and I had the queer experience of watching my feet as I soared help lessly upwards. In falling, I coul: see the bows of the Undine slipping under the water. I struck the side oj the Bustler, and was then plunge: down and down. I saw the keels ol the boats and fought my way up. Or reaching the surface I struck out for : pile, and was almost exhausted wher I was pulled up." It was his worst experience, he said. He was unhurt except that he felt a "bit unshipped.' His joints all seemed loosened. FORCE OF THE EXPLOSION. Revealing the tremendous force o; the explosion, the lifeboats and davits of the Bustler, weighing nearly twe tons, were flung 25 feet into the ah against the top floor of the wharf. A ten-foot length of copper piping wa< found flattened around one of the wharf steel girders. A ten-inch steel file was embedded four inches into one of the shed doors. A massive shed door on the other side of the whari was blown inwards. The bridge telegraph of the Undine was blown over a liner at the opposite wharf, and landed on the far side of the adjacent wharf. Rivets and splintered timbei were found hundreds of yards away. On the Bustler, Samuel Elliott and William Nolan suffered greatly from shock. Elliott was flung along the deck, and Nolan was hurled from one side of the cabin to the other, al movable articles falling around hirn Both struggled on to the wharf. The Undine had disappeared. At that moment the two saw Captain Merchant in the water. They threw him a line, and while Elliott drew him to the Bustler, Nolan leaped on board and dragged the captain in. After the explosion the Undine rolled over and disappeared quickly beneath the surface. The Undine, which was not insured, was valued at £1500. The Bustler was damaged to the amount o' £300. Both tugs, owned by Daley and Daley, merchants, were preparing to meet a vessel. The 'Undine—the oldest tugboat in Sydney—was built in 1884.