POWDER FACTORY EXPLOSION

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21557, 20 January 1940, Page 9

POWDER FACTORY EXPLOSION

FIVE KILLED NEAR LONDON Vast Trail Of Ruin Sabotage Plot Is Suspected United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received January 19, 6.30 p.m.) LONDON, January 18. Two terrific explosions in a British gunpowder factory near London at 10.30 a.tn. to-day shook the nearby town, where hundreds of windows were smashed and ceilings crashed. A church was damaged and five leaded windows were blown out, but valuable stained glass windows, being boarded up, were unharmed. An olficial announcement states: “Five were killed and a number were injured, the majority slightly, in an explosion in the Royal gunpowder factory at Waltham Abbey.” Scotland Yard officers are investigating a suspected sabotage plot at the gunpowder factory, police and soldiers are guarding the district. It is understood that three attempts were made to damage the factory recently. The police interrogated hundreds of workers in the past few days. The inquiries extended to other Government factories. A vast trail or ruin marked the course of the furious blast from two explosions. Steel girders were thrown 500 yards, the shock was felt 25 miles distant and reverberations were heard 90 miles from London. The casualty list shows five killed and 30 injured. The damaged part of the works covered a circumference of seven miles, blit windows were shattered and doors and fences torn down far beyond. Scores of people were thrown off their feet. Thousands believed that an air raid had begun. According to earlier messages the works fire brigade and ambulances attended to the casualties. Flames shot up high after the explosion, which was followed by a dense pall of smoke. Shop windows were blown in 20 miles distant. “The factory is surrounded by nursery gardens, resulting in hundreds of thousands of panes of glass being broken. "The accident, involving special equipment, of which the details are secret, killed three men and seriously injured one man of the Queen's Royal Regiment, the Dorset Light Infantry.” The evening newspapers report that the explosions which occurred in quick succession at 10.45 a m., were heard and felt over a radius of twenty miles. The doors of houses and glass windows of shops in the neighbourhood Were blown out and the windows of hundreds of houses were broken. The Ministry of Supply has announced that an inquiry into the cause of the accident is being made. It is understood that the authorities received ananymous information that accidents might happen at the Waltham Abbey factory and others throughout England.