EXPLOSION AND FIRE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17032, 13 December 1918, Page 8

EXPLOSION AND FIRE.

THE AMERICAN DISASTER.

PANIC IN NEW YORK.

MANY THOUSANDS HOMELESS.

The disastrous explosions which occurred at the Gillespie shell-loading works at Morgan's, New Jersey, on October 4 and 5 last, and which resulted <in a large number of the. employees either killed or injured resulted in scenei of terror in the immediate vicinity and particularly in New York. The Gillespie plant is one of the largest of its kind in America, and has some 7000 men and women on its pay roll. / A New York paper of October 6, in describing the explosion, says One of the greatest disasters that the metropolitan district has ever suffered drew on toward its close at Morgan last night, where for the last 24 hours the burning Government shell-loading plant managed by the T. A. GilleEpie Loading Company has flamed and thundered destruction. Early yesterday morning it was erroneously reported that tho fire in the great factory, which had been burning since early on Friday evening, was under control. Since then five tremendous explosions of trinitro-toluo! stored there, and hundreds of minor blasts have practically wiped . the entire plant, covering eight square miles, out of existence. The terrific salvos, which burst out at irregular intervals as the fire ate its way from building to building, shook the entire State of New Jersey and caused minor damage in New York, 40 miles away. They wiped out Morgan. They destroyed South Amboy, a town of 10,000 persons, from which 'all but a few hundred > have fled. They created a devastated district, as terrible as any that France may display, for a radius of two miles about the plant. They wrecked scores of buildings in a far wider area. Sixty thousand persons are homeless to-nightrefugees from the stupendous cannonade that threatened to destroy their homos. No one has yet attempted to estimate the damage. No one has been able to count the injured or dead. The former are being cared for in hospitals filled to overflowing in a half-dozen towns and in tents erected by the Red Cross. The latter still lie in the blackened area where the great plant stood. The flames are so fierce still that no one has dared approach. Added to the horror of the five earthquake-like explosions of yesterj day wag the fear that the main magazine, in which hundreds of tons are stored, | would be reached and exploded. Had this occurred the results would have been unthinkable. By noon, when it appeared as though tho magazine must go, officers of the Ordnance Department who had assumed charge of the situation, ordered all habitations evacuated for a radius of ten miles about the plant. The heat of the flames kept soldiers and rescuers far from the fire, but observations made by airplane, late in the afternoon, determined the safety* of tho magazine. Novel Use for Aeroplane.

0 All the afternoon the work of clearing e the zone, "which army officers believed g would be blasted out of all human shape 8 if the great magazine went- up, proceeded, 1 while the fire continued to rage and crept g nearer and nearer the danger line behind 9 its barrage of shells. 3 How near was the wave of fire to the magazine? Was it still advancing? These were questions that passed up and down the cordon of troops that ' held' their j ground and wondered half-humorouslv what • was going to happen to them when "the b'g one poes." But the officers in charge of the situation had been nt work and had determined to use one of the mainstays of human war-' fare upon this battle with inanimate things. j It was thought that the great magazine would go at somewhere near four.o'clock. Just before that hour those who watched and waited saw a black speck coma drifting in from the east, watched it grow and take form until the snarl of a motor • came to their ears above the thunder of , , buretine she l !?. It. was an aeronlane from ' the fly in fields at Hampstead, sent to •' scout above the advancing ranks of the » 1 fire. ' . ; | The cordon of troops saw it wheel and 1 dip in and out of the smoke cloud. 'Once i j it swept so c-ose that thev could see the observer leaning out, field glasses glued . to his eyes. At last the observation was completed and the 'plane dipped to earth behind tile line of waiting men. "All safe," came the answer to the question each was asking. "It won't reach tho magazine." The first of tile series of explosions occurred at about the time the nieht i shift of 2000 emnlovees or more had rone ito work. Th« explosion was followed by others in Quick succession. There was a lull and then came a dozen or more explosions of about the same force. There were scenes of panic in New York, which, locked throughout the day bv explosions which vibrated its tallest buildings, experienced for five hours yesterday the fear of whit misrht have proved the greatest sinele catastrophe in the hisI tory of high explosives. At every bridge plaza and subway station vast throngs gathered, and everywhere there was an att'tude of suspense and alarm foreign in ' calibre to anything New York has ever ' known. Refugees Flee la Terror. I While this situation obtained in the 1 city, hundreds of thousands of -refugees 1 from all towns in the vicinity of Morgans | were fleeing in panic along every highway ( leading to safety in New (Jersey, and as , they fled amid scenes of confusion there , roared forth explosions which did a dam- ' j age of more than £10,000.000, killed and 1 . injured many, and made virtually every ! one of the refugees homeless. For hours , the- great exodus continued along the New I Jersey roads amid scenes of panic and 'confusion beyond description. Men, ( | women, and children were trampled, 1 I waggonloads of furniture were overturned \ and formed stumbling blocks for thousands 1 in the mad turmoil. Horses ran Away or . .kicked furiously in the closely-packed 1 throngs, and children by the hundreds I wem frantically sought by parents whom i they, in turn, were seeking. 1 "I do not think the explosion resulted ( iron: carelessness among our employees," 1 scad T. A Gillespie, head of the munition , plant, _ after conferring with military . authorities. Without venturing any reply* to a question as to the possibility" of the 1 explosion* being the work of Germany, I Mr. Gillespie said: "This is war, how- 1 ever, and we are in tho midst of it.''