A TERRIBLE EXPLOSION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 915, 13 September 1889, Page 26

A TERRIBLE EXPLOSION.

By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. GREAT LOSS OE LIFE. (per press association.) Brussels, September 6. A cartridge factory at Antwerp exploded to-day. Two hundred workmen were killed, and one hundred wounded. Several petroleum factories adjoining caught fire, and a hundred thousand barrels of petroleum were burnt. September 7. It was Corvilain’s cartridge factory which exploded, and the shock much resembled that of an earthquake. Its effect was even more disastrous than at first reported, and it is now estimated that fully three hundred per sons were killed, and a thousand wounded. The River Schelde was covered with burning petroleum, but fortunately the wind was blowing in a direction that left the shipping untouched. Two hundred factory girls are either killed or seriously injured. The general damage to the port of Antwerp and the city, including the bourse, is most extensive. It is feared that the steeple of the cathedral is injured, and every window :n Antwerp is’broken. All the crane machinery in connection with the port lies in ruins. The explosion of the cartridge factory at Antwerp was heard at Ghent, over thirty miles away, and the flames were visibls in this city. A panic ensued after the explosion, and many of the soldiers who were preserving order were suffocated. The firemen were powerless to control the conflagration which broke out, and five acre of buildings were destroyed. The Cathedral windows were all smashed, and the pire endangered. Brussels, September 9. The excitement over the explosion

of the cartridge factory at Antwerp is subsiding. The damage is enormous.

(special to press association.)

Brussels, September 7.

A block of buildings covering a space of two acres has been destroyed by the fire which occurred after the petroleum explosion.