TERRIFIC EXPLOSION

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11764, 31 July 1916, Page 6

TERRIFIC EXPLOSION

MUNITIONS WORKS WRECKED

ALL NEW YORK SHAKEN. ENORMOUS DAMAGE HUNDREDS KILLED, INJURED, AND MISSING SIX HUNDRED TONS OF EXPLOSIVES DESTROYED SHIPPING ON FIRE By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.

Australian and N.£. CaMo Association. (Received July 31, 11 a.rn.) NEW -YORK, July 30- -\ huge, explosion wrecked tho National Storage Company, manufacturing rauhitious for tho Allies. Seven million dollars' worth of damage was caused. • Shell-laden barges drifted clown tho bay ablaze, and hit Ellis Island, where they •exploded, causing, damago to the amount of one million dollars. Tho immigrants were hustled out of Ellis Island. The explosion was felt in five States. Two cars of shrapnel shell are surrouude* by the Barnes and are unapproachable

crowds, but, in the mad stampede through tho stteets many were trodden down. Thousands who were at supper or dancing in Broadway's cabaret* rushed into the streets, shrieking with terror. Many ran into the subwaysj with the result that the passage was jammed by people. At the first explosion the Woolwortb. building and other skyscrapers showed up against tho sky, intermittently lit up by the awful glare. Pieces of shrapnel were picked up a mile away. THIEVES AT WORK. In Wall Street windows were wrecked and also shop windows in Herald Square and the adjacent section of Broadway. Tho police endeavoured to guard tho jewellers' windows, but there was much looting.

NEW YORK PANIC STRICKEN.

Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. (Received Jnly 31 - i- 50 P- m ') NEW YORK, July 3D. A terrific explosion at two o'clock on Sunday morning shook tho whole of the Manhattan, Brooklyn and Now Jersey cities. It was followed by another*.shock at 2.30 p.m. Many.streets down town were strewn with glass. It was believed at first that a train of munitions for tho AUios had been blown up. Another report, was that an oil station had been blown up. Tho sky was lit up with fires at Communipaw and Jersey City. Several deaths were reported, and there was an enormous damage to property. There was difficulty in obtaining infoimation owing to the telephone *ml telegraphs being broken dtwn. The streets were crowded with thousands of panic-stricken people. The explosion, it was eventually reported, occurred in the munitions establishment of the National Storage Company near Communipaw. MANY• FIREMEN KILLED. The firemen were fighting the flames when tho second explosion hurled them in all directions, killing thiritftliree. Oil ships lying near were set on fire, causing a tremendous conflagration. All the warehouses in the vicinity wore wrecked. It is stated that more than six hundred tons of explosives for the Allies were blown up. Hundreds of police and firemen fl-re making frantic efforts to prevent the spread of the flames towards the Standard Oil works, which arc adjacent.

Details show that the fire first broke out in freight cars. It- spread to a wharf and blew up fourteen barges loaded with high explosives. , HUGE PILLAR OP FIRE. The National Storage works are located on Black ton Island. Seven of the company's warehouses wcro set on fire, and all the- plant was wrecked. A tremendous pillar of fire rose when the barges blew up. HUNDREDS THROWN OUTOFBED. Tito scenes in New York find Brooklyn were unprecedented. The forceof tho explosion was such that hundreds of people in all parts of Brooklyn, Manhattan and Broux were hurled out of their beds. Thousands rushed from the hotels and apartment houses i;i their night clothes and ran screaming into tho streets. Two barges drifted down tho stream Vila zing from bow to stern. Tho injured removed from barges near tiio f.ccno include many women and children. The damage to the National plant nlono is more than £1.000.000. The total damage is. estimated at £15.000,000. (Received .July. 31, 1.15 p.m>.) The newspapers' estimates of th? number of dead vary from fifty to thr:>o hundred. Tijo injured and miss-ng number hundreds. The amount of the damage is nob vet estimated.

STORY OF OUTBREAK

CROWD'S MAD STAMPEDE I . SHRIEKING THOUSANDS IN SUBWAYS. Australian and N\Z. Cubic Association. (Received July 21, 1 p.m.) NEW YORK", July 30. It i* now possible to obtain a connected narrative of the explosion, which the consternation and broken cotemunieations at the outset precluded. Although the origin is a mystery, it is believed hut the fire started in the National Storage building, and spread to a carload of' dynamite, which, in turn, spread to munition cars and barges. Probably there were a scors of separate explosions, lasting till sis o'clock. After the first alarm, all the police, on special duty, and all firemen and ambulances were railed out. The jxilici' eh. r'u<"! ih.' o;U'iic of the

FURTHER DETAILS.

SCENES IN NEW YORK. Australian and-N.Z. Cable Association. (Received July 31,- 1.50 p.m.) NEW YORK, July 30. The explosion caused great consternation on Ellis Island. Following on the shattering of buildings, the authorities called the ferry boats, into which tho immigrants wero hustled and hurried to Manhattan. Many wero injured. The great damage caused by tho fire was fortunately in a district not residential, otherwir-o there would have been awful loss of life. The scene of the oxplosiou is at the. Lehigh Valley, the terminal of one of the main points from which munitions are loaded for the Allies. Trains, crossing Brooklyn Bridge rocked and windows were smashed. Passengers were hurled to the floors. Thero was an indescribable rattle and crash, of glass falling from thousands of windows. Buildings were torn down and these scenes recall, but on an infinitely bigger scale, tho bomb raids in England. Terrified people rushed to doorways and other cover to escape the falling glass. Many were injured. Tho number taken to hospital is not vet computed. Wall Street, Fulton Street and other down-town streets are like a sea of broken glass. Morgan's buildings are windowless. The guests at the Astor and other fashionable hotels rushed into the streets in scanty attire. Several men in a. building adjoining state that the explosion is unaccounted For. It is feared that many bodies aro in the debris, and it is known that a number of workmen were blown to atoms. As one barge drifted the fire crept on the hull till it reached the shells, when tho water was lit up by a mass of ihtmo shooting skywards.