BALTIMORE DISASTER.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume III, Issue 73, 10 March 1913, Page 5

BALTIMORE DISASTER.

GREAT LOSS OF LIFE. HEAVY DAMAGE TO SHIPPING. [PRESS ASSOCIATION COPYRIGHT.] New York. March 8. Fifty were killed and eighty seriously injured by the explosion of 300 tons of dynamite at Baltimore. Details show that the British steamer Alumchine, and a scow lying alongside were blown to pieces. The tug Atlantic went to the assistance of those struggling in the water, but caught fire and sank. Another steamer, the Jason, sought to lend assistance, but was riddled by pieces of wreckage which were hurled into mid-air. Twenty bodies have been recovered but are unrecognisable. A number of the crew of the Atlantic were killed by flying debris, which included pieces of red-hot iron. The tug Britannia ran a line aboard the Atlantic, hoping to tow her into shallow water, but the vessel sank, drowning the majority of those who had escaped the previous hail of debris.

Captain Vandyke, of the Atlantic, perished on deck after a gallant effort to rescue the Alumchine’s crew.

Mangled bodies are floating everywhere on the sea.

Bomhart, foreman in charge of the gang of .lightermen, has been arrested in connection with the explosion. The lightermen accuse Bemhart of sticking a hook into the' dynamite and so causing the explosion. He had previously complained that the men wtere idling and sought tc shew them how to work.