BLOWN TO ATOMS

Evening Star, Issue 18503, 10 December 1923, Page 2

BLOWN TO ATOMS

TRAGEDY m EXPLOSIVES FACTORY

A recent file of ‘ Ago ’ newspapers gives ■ a graphic account of the terrific explosion (the second this year) which occurred at tho Australian Explosives Company’s works at Deer Park, Melbourne, on November 21, causing the death of three employees and shattering the nerves of every worker in the vicinity. Tho victitns were : Christopher Vella, tKventy-three, single; T. Askew, forty-six, married; and Pred. Inglis, forty-four, married. Amazing stories have been told by the different persons who were in the locality at tho time of the fatality. Last January the whole of tho kjtatc was shocked at the hews that three girls who had been working in one of the numgrous huts had been killed while engaged in wrapping cartridges. Such was tho effect on some of tho girl employees who had been near the explosion that they decided to leave tho works for ever. Others resumed their duties as before, and at noon on tho 2ist tho business of the day was proceeding as usual. Each cartridge hut contained its four girls’all busily engaged in their j tasks, and trolleys of tho mixture were being pushed along tho lino from hut to hut. Just a score of yards away from the main offices of tho company, Christopher Vella, P. Askew, and P, Inglis wore working either inside or outside what is known as tho gelatinising house. , Prom the outside the house presented a peculiar appearance to the ordinary spectator, with I its tons of dirt enclosed in huge and high galvanised iron casings, as though to protect the little wooden structure within the dirt walls from the fierce blasts of cold ; wind which sweep across the plains along tho Ballarat road. According to all ac-1 counts, Askew was at work in the room, watching the operations of tho three mixing machines, and Vella, a Maltese, only recently arrived with a hatch of other immigrants, was pushing a truck of 2701 b of explosives on the outside of the hut along tho rail near by. Inglis was standing on a loop line outsidq_.the shed with a truck of empty carriers. TERRIFIC EXPLOSION. All had gone well till just before 2 o’clock, when everyone connected with the works, and tho people within a radius of eight miles of tne centre of tho works, heard what they declare to have been a most terrifying report, louder and more nerve-shattering than anything they had I ever .heard. Immediately khere followed a | huge upheaval in the atmosphere, and in ; a second strong men and frail girls had been rushed l off their feet by a sudden and hidden force in the air. Buildings shook and rocked, and tho whole earth se&rae-d to bo quivering as though struck with a great blow from some giant hammer. Not a second had elapsed before all the windows in the neighborhood had fallen to the ground, smashed to atoms, sides of buildings had been torn away, galvanised iron had been hurled hundreds of feet in. tho air, and wooden doors attached to the various huts had been wrenched from their hinges and thrown to the ground. In the next second the sky was blackened with a mass of tangled galvanised iron, torn timber, tons of dirt and quantities of glass, all emerging from tho place where the gelatinising house occupied by tho three men mentioned had been standing. PANIC DEVELOPS. Immediately tbei-e was panic among tho seventy girl employees and the numerous men of tho works. Considerably frightened by tho terrible explosion, and well aware that one of the worst tragedies of the year must have occurred somew hero in the works, girls, remembering the fate of the three women—May Jackson, Margaret Nikon, and Florence Smith —on January 10 last, screamed and fainted, rushed at one another, fought to reach the doors of the different huts in the danger zone, and ran out into the open spaces surrounding each of tho dirt-enclosed I houses. Dirt, tin, wood, glass, and parts ! of human bodies were then tailing on the ground, and one of the most horrible sudden tragedies had ended. Men rushed through the cloud l of blackened smoke and thick dust to where they knew they would find the dead bodies of their colleagues; and so they reached tho centre of the scene of desolation, and many stopped still, sick with horror. , j SCENE OP DESOLATION. Where there had been a wooden building some 20ft by 15ft and some 15ft high, i surrounded by a towering mound of earth, | there remained nothing. Not even one piece of upright timber was to be seen; ! the mounds had disappeared, and a huge hole had been tom in the earth. Running forward, they found that two of the men had disappeared, but that the ground was bespattered . with blood and mutilated parts of the bodies of Vella and Askew. Then one was heard to utter a peculiar cry of dismay and fear, and as the others approached him they found him stooping over the mortally injured Inglis. One boot j had been wrenched from the foot, tho | trousers had been tom to ribbons, and ’ lay scattered about, and the undergar- i raent was saturated with blood from the ■ two injured legs, which had been fright- i fully smashed. One arm had been torn I from the body, and was not to be found, and the head was hardly recognisable. Gasping for breath, the injured man endeavored to say something, but immediately afterwards died, taking with | him the dreadful cause of the whole up- I hoaval. Reverently the men placed his body in the spot whore it had I ten found—at the side of what remahed of tho massive mound of earth and galvan- ; ised iron. The scattered remains of tho other two men were collected from a largo area, and were assembled so that they might be despatched to tho morgue. i HUTS SHATTERED AND PIERCED.

After the explosion an inspection of the danger zone disclosed a scene of chaos and desolation not unworthy of a village in Flanders during the war. Approaching the outer ring of the huts from the west debris was found lying around. This ! vicinity was 200yds from the hut where ' the explosion occurred. Pieces of galvanised iron, torn into shreds, blackened with smoke, dinted and covered with holes, and with all sign of their corrugations gone, strewed the ground, also pieces of wood from inches up to 6ft in length, all evidently hurled there by the bursting gelignite. A fragment of a wooden beam, , several feet in length, was standing upright, having pierced the earth for several inches. All these exhibits of the force of the explosion had been thrown over several buildings. Most of the windows in these outer huts were broken. Getting nearer to the scene of death the quantity ' of debris increased, and the huts bore | signs of violent treatment, and everything 1 pointed to the hasty retreat of the in- : mates. The girls who had worked in these 1 huts, when they heard the noise, which was described as louder than any thunder clap, and felt the building shake, rushed in panic to the open air, througn which stones, iron, and wood wore flying, much to their danger. Windows were broken, and their frames hung broken and waving in the breeze; doors were wide open, and in others keys were in the locks, benches contained explosives the girls had been packing, most of the weatherboard walls were splintered, and some of the iron roofs were pierced. No sign existed of, the usual orderly “ tidying up,” even the articles of attire such as rubber shoes, which each worker among explosives is compelled to wear, were found among the , disorder. SCORES OF BIRDS KILLED.

Around nearly every hut from which the girls had flown in terror were,numerous dead sparrow fledglings. The parent birds were hovering about in an agitated state. The übiquitous sparrows, blissfully ignorant of possible explosions and their effect, had found the hut roofs ideal for nest-building, as was evidenced by the wisps'of straw which peeped out under the iron. The young birds, almost ready to fly at this period of the year, had apparently been shaken out of the nests by the explosion, and their wings not being strong enough to save them, had met their deaths by falling to the ground. Quite a hundred fledglings must have perished.