GAS TANK EXPLODES

Taranaki Daily News, 16 November 1927, Page 7

GAS TANK EXPLODES

13 KILLED IN PITTSBURG DEATH ROLL MAY INCREASE MUCH PROPERTY DAMAGED LARGE AREA DEVASTATED By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Vancouver, Nov. 14. At Pittsburg more than a score were killed and several hundred injured this morning by the explosion of a mammoth natural gas storage tank, containing 5,000,000 cubic feet of gas. Thirteen bodies have at present been recovered, but it is feared the death roll will be much higher. Many of the hundreds of injured, who were rushed to the hospital, are not expected to live. The explosion shattered windows through a large area of the city and broke the water mains, which flooded the streets and prevented the rescuers from penetrating the place where most of the dead and injured lay. Houses adjacent to the scene of the disaster were demolished, and it is believed many women and children were caught in the wreckage. Mothers who left home just before the explosion fonght the policemen and firemen who endeavoured to keep them from the danger zone in which were the screaming children who had been lelt at home. Great pieces of the tank lay half submerged in the flooded streets, twisted like paper, for hundreds of feet about the wrecked tank. Many persons far from the blast were struck by missiles. Electric and telephone wires were reduced to tangled, twisted debris. The wires operating fire alarms were thrown out of order and caused numerous fire scares in addition to actual outbreaks. The police are guarding the besieged hospitals, but are unable to preserve order. The ambulance patrol wagons forced their way through only with great difficulty. •

The officials are unable to estimate the number of men working in the plant at the time of the explosion. They valued the tank at 750,000 dollars. Received Nov. 15, 5.5 p.m. New York, Nov. 14. The known dead number 14, while 500 were injured. It is believed other bodies are buried •under the wreckage of numerous homes and buildings scattered over one area. Received Nov. 15, 7.30 p.m. New York, Nov, 14. The death-roll in the Pittsburg gasometer explosion is now 28, with from 300 to 500 injured. The damage is estimated at 5,000,000 dollars. With nightfall temporary morgues were set up near the scene and an army of tractors was called in to help to raze the walls. The rescue work is hazardous because of the possibility of the torches igniting the gaseous ruins. An eye-witness who was working a quarter- of a mile from the scene said he heard the explosion and then saw a great ball of fire a hundred feet in diameter rise from the tank into the air. Motorists across the Ohio River, riding in glass-enclosed ears, felt the heat of the fireball through the car doors. Another eye-witness said: “We could not see a whole man anywhere.” A man in an office 25 storeys high, across the street, eaid he felt the building sway as if in an earthquake. More than 400 injured were treated in hospitals. Legislation is proposed to prohibit gas tanks being erected within city limits.