The Rustchuk Explosion.

Hastings Standard, Issue 488, 29 November 1897, Page 4

The Rustchuk Explosion.

SPECTATORS PETRIFIED BY HORROR. A dramatic account by an eye-wit-ness of the explosion at Rustchuk on August 6, which claimed close on 200 victims, is telegraphed by the Standard's Paris correspondent. At halfpast 1 o'clock in the afternoon, just at the moment when the Prince of Bulgaria, returning from Bucharest, reached the Bulgarian bank of the Danube, a formidable explosion was heard from a place at about two kilometres from Rustchuk, opposit Giurgevo. ' Immediately afterwards thick clouds of smoke covered the town. It was at first thought that some outrage bad been committed, but the news soon spread that a million of cartridges and an immense quantity of gunpowder, which the Government had recently sold to Ivan of Bros., had exploded. Every one ran to the scene of the accident, situated on a hillock at about 100 metres from the Danube. The eve-witness ran with the rest, He describes what he saw as follows : We met first some of those who had escaped from the catastrophe. They looked at us with haggard eyes, and could scarcely speak. All of them were as black as coal ; several completely naked. Some of them fell, never to rise to their feet again. Then came a young girl whose clothes and hair were burning. She fell to the ground also, with her face to the earth, her body writhing with agony. Another yonug girl resisted when attempts were made to tear her burning clothes off her. She also fell, and died. Soon the corpses became more numerous. Here there are five, eight, a dozen, a score. Numbers of the victims, with their clothes ablaze, ran headlong to the Danube, jumped blindly into it, and were carried away by the current. After a time the cries became less piercing and less frequent. Death had already almost completed its work. All the spectators who had run to the rescue remained petrified with horror, not knowing which of the injured persons to help first. In the meanwhile the lire continued to blaze. The firemen arrived, but it was impossible to organise the rescue of the victims. The injured people continued to crawl about on the ground crying for water. A TEIUUBLE SPECTACLE. Within a radius of several metres round the burning ruins the ground was thick with carbonised, shrivelledup corpses. Here and there were arms, legs, heads, and hands, offering a terrible spectable. For the moment no one dared approach too nearly the scene of the accident, fearing a second explosion. Only 10, metres off is a magazine, which contained at the time several tons of powder. If a spark had found its way into it the spectators would have perished. Nothing remained of the cartridge factory but a few blackened supporting posts. The bodies lay in heaps, some of the unfortunate creatures still moved in the last convulsions of death. From time to time a gust of wind swept away the smoke from the heaps of the burned and burning bodies. One boy, apparently 1;-) years of age, was seen crawling on all fours, falling and knocking against bodies, and shrieking with pain, for his body was still one mass of flames. He, too, fell on his face, never to rise again. In the meantime the firemen were playing on the ruins and bodies scattered all over the place. The authorities arrived on the spot, but without any appliances or requisites to minister to the injured. Several of the workpeople who bad been blown into the air by the explosion and had escaped with bruises only, ran about panic-stricken in all directions. The crowd continued increasing incessantly. Carts and carriages of every description were requisitioned to convey the injured people to the hospital in the town. Most of them died on the way, though the distance was but short. Most of the victims were young people from 10 to 20 years of age. They worked for wages varying from 50 to 80 centimes a day, and tbeir occupation consisted in emptying the cartridges and separating the powder and bullets. It appears that to prevent them from stealing these workpeople were locked in the factory and searched before leaving in the evening. This fact led to the loss of numerous lives of persons who had not been killed by the explosion, but who were burned to death because they could not get out of the building. On landing, Prince Ferdinand, being informed of the catastrophe, went immediately to visit the injured people. Most of the victims <ere Armenian refugees.