EXPLOSION IN FACTORY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVII, Issue 92, 16 March 1927, Page 3

EXPLOSION IN FACTORY.

HUNDRED GIRLS COLLAPSE. WORKMAN’S NARROW ESCAPE. A vulcaniser exploded at Perdriau’s rubber factory at Drummoyne, Sydfney, last week, tearing away a cement wall and a section of the roof. Over 100 girls collapsed through shock and were taken to hospital. The explosion occurred a few minutes before noon. Only one man was cut slightly, but the remarkable feature of the accident was the manner in which the girls in the shoe factory, where the vulcaniser blew out, collapsed through shock. Soon after the explosion, girls were thrown off their feet on the surrounding floors. There were terrified screams, and, as one of the employees expressed it, “they went down like ninepins.” Ambulances were summoned, and a fleet of six was kept busy removing terrified, fainting and hysterical girls to hospitals. Several hours after the explosion, girls collapsed, and it was after 3 p.m. before the last were taken to hospital. Out of 300 girls in the factory, few were fit to work, so all were allowed! to go home. Hundreds of shoes had been placed in the boilershaped vulcaniser for preparation, and all were destroyed, torn and twisted by the explosion. The vulcaniser was situated on the second storey of a three-storey building, with several others. Two men in charge of it were standing some distance away. Without warning, there was a terrific roar that made the building tremble. Throughout all sections of the factory the detonation was heard, even m the buildings on the opposite side of the street. The steel door of the apparatus weighed nearly a ton, and was forced through a cement wall. Sheets of iron were torn from the roof as if they were mere sheets of paper by the upward rush of air. A j workman on the roof about 20 feet above the room housing the vulcaniser had a narrow escape. The force of the explosion caused him to lose his balance. He fell over the edge of the roof upon the glass roof of the factory’s surgical room, sustaining a few minor cuts.