A TERRIFIC IMPACT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13730, 22 April 1908, Page 7

A TERRIFIC IMPACT.

STORIES OF PASSENGERS. A MOST PITIFUL SIGHT. Miss White, a passenger who was dragged from the wreckage, says: "I just got into the train from Ballarat at Braybrook Junction. Before it moved off I heard a whistle. A gentleman said, 'Is that the Bendigo train'/' Before there could be any answer there was a terrific smash, and the Bendigo train dashed into our train. " Women screamed and _ men shouted orders. I started to go along the wreckage of the carriages, but the sight of the killed and wounded was too much for me, and I collapsed on thft platform.

The scene was a terrible one: women screaming and moaning with, pain while ♦hey groped vound the wreck ot the train, where a number of wounded passengers were helping one another bind up their injuries. "There were a lot of children there, whose cries, as they looked for their parents, were heartbreaking. \ To add to the horror of the scene, carriages caught, fire, and it looked as if numbers of the wended would be burned ali/e. The fire brigade, however, soon got the .flames subdued. ' . f " A most pitiful sight was the terror of a young mother in my carriage. She was nursing a baby when the smash came. The collision knocked the infant out of her arms, and it fell into my* lap, and then on to the floor. The mother fas almost distracted as she searched about the compartment for her baby. On finding it tminjured she gave a cry of joy and fell in a faint." Another passenger states that a battlefield scene could not have been worse than the frightful scene of carnage in the big room of the Sunshine Harvester Works (oppositethe Braybrook Junction station), which, large as it is, would not Hold all thosewho urgently needed attention. ''I saw," lie says, " a very large number of people horribly mutilated. Indeed, it was the exception to come across anyone ■who had not been injured in some form. " A very large number of passengers were panic-stricken and lost their heads, adding, by their wild rushes, to the terror of the tragedy, while several people were burned to death before any help could be rendered them."