INQUIRY OPENED.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 12805, 1 June 1914, Page 5

INQUIRY OPENED.

CAFTAIN KENDALL'S EVIDENCE THE STORSTAD WARNED. Received 1.0 a.m. QUEBEC, May 30. The Coroner has opened an inquiry at Remouskie. Captain Kendall has recovered from the effects of his immersion but is very depressed. He was the chief witness. He stated that he saw the Storstad two miles off before the fog obliterated it. He stopped the ship and whistled three short blasts and

? the Storstad replied with one long - blast. Some minutes later the Stor.s- ---? tad loomed up in the fog a ship's • length away. He megaphoned her to i backwater and himself ordered full I speed ahead hoping to avert a disaster. Afterwards he asked the Storstad to '-ontinue full sp ed ahead in tl;«> hope to iill up the hole but the Storstad backed, and he failed to beach the Empress of Ireland because the engines became useless in three minutes. She filled rapidly when the Storstad backed out. He added that he saw the fog bank approaching in plenty of time and be took every precaution' humanly possible. Ihe behaviour c f the officers and cr<_■ ?/ was beyond praise. CHIEF ENGINEER'S EVIDENCE. "NO EXPLOSION OF ANY KIND." Chief Engineer S'rrpson gave evidence that he remained in the engine, room until the lights went out and the steam was gone. He soon reached the deck. The lifeboats broke loose and swept numbers under the water, including himself. He became entangled in the wreckage and narrowly escaped and scrambled into a boat. He saw the collier a mile and a halt: distant. Immediately before the collision the Empress of India went full speed astern and stopped, and then he got the order. "Full speed ahead,'' but he had only started the engines when the crash came. There was no explosion of any kind. If the collier had kept, closer to the Empress of Ireland \s side manw lives would have beeu saved, and if she had pushed against the hole the Empress of Ireland could have reached the shore before sinking. The inquest was adjourned for a week. NO AUSTRALIANS LOST. No Australians were lost in the Empress of Ireland.