TERRIBLE EXPLOSION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20596, 21 June 1930, Page 10

TERRIBLE EXPLOSION.

DEATH-TRAP IN .FACTORY. LOSS OF EIGHT LIVES* FIFTY PERSONS INJURED. Eight people lost their lives and nearly 50 others were more or less seriously in-r jured in a terrific factory explosion in Liverpool a few weeks ago. The scene of the first explosion was the eleventh storey of the great, oil cake works of Messrs. Bibby, and- in this unfortunate accident eight men lost their lives. Of the great number injured, grave fears were entertained for the recovery of at least six. An official report gave the cause of the explosion as spontaneous combustipn in oil-bearing sunflower-cake kept in a silo, or a chamber for the storage of wheat. At 11.20 in tho- morning the whole neighbourhood—a busy and populous quarter of the dock warehouse district—-was roused by a shattering report high up in the great building, where 300 men were at work. Yellow flames leaped into the air, and the roof, blown right across the street, ripped off part of the roof of another building. A second but less violent explosion followed a few seconds later and when some of the smoke had cleared the people below saw that 60 steel girders had been twisted like wire and some were being licked by the flames. Among these shattered girders workmen crouched in stupour, their flesh blackened and the clothing torn from their bodies by tho force of the explosion. A Plucky Rescuer. The figure of a man with only a rag round his shoulders was observed plainly silhouetted against the sky, jumping about vainly trying to beat out the flames from his head and arms. He seemed certain to fall into the street when William Hyams, a young engineer, laboriously made his way along a girder and saved him. Another man, who had been stripped of everything except hiß boots, was blown into, an adjoining silo and hung down%vards held by his foot, which had been caught in a bar 100 ft. from the bottom of the silo. He was rescued unconscious. Three other men jumped down a chuta and were rescued at the bottom seriously injured. Firemen and police fought their way through choking fumes to the doors of the silo, went inside, and brought out unconscious and injured men. Outside was a procession of ambulances. Many private car owners joined in and helped to take the casualties to the hospitals, but less serious cases were treated at dressing stations hastily set up on different floors of the building. Women in the crowd fainted at the sight of tKS burned, blinded and crippled victims, and others ran after the ambulances and besieged the doors of the hospitals to which the injured persons were taken. Wounded Man's Injuries. One of the injured, Mr. William Lee, aged 54, caught the full force of the first explosion, but refused the attentions of the ambulance men on the ground that they had "plenty to do." He boarded the overhead railway and travelled for more than a mile to a hospital. There they found that he had four ribs and a wrist broken, and a serious wound in the head. Among those also hurt is Mr. James Bibby, jun., son of one of the heads of the firm.

Immediately after the explosion the workers employed at the factory were paraded in the street and a roll-call was made. While this was going on about 50 firemen searched the ruins of the eleventh floor 130 ft. above the thoroughfare below, where mounted police had to control tha great crowds. A disaster in which 23 people were killed and more than 100 injured occurred at the same factory in 1911.