STEAMBOAT EXPLOSION IN THE UNITED STATES.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3332, 30 October 1871, Page 2

STEAMBOAT EXPLOSION IN THE UNITED STATES.

The steamer Ocean Wave loft Mobile on a Saturday morning in August last, with two hundred persons, for an excursion to l<isn River, about twenty miles from that oity.On the return trip, the bo it reached Point Clear at 5 p.m., and made fast. The baud and part of the passengers went ashore, and after the lapse of half-an-hour the whistle was blown and all returned to the boat. They bad just got on board when the boiler exploded with ireat force, followed by a rumbling hissing sound. Fragments of timbers of the boat and the metal of the boiler were blown in every , direction, the forward part of the cabin was carried away, the chimney fell cm the after deck and crushed it. The boat almost immediately sunk, and her bow is now submerged About sixty or seventy persons were killed and injured by the explosion. The scene was appalling and heartrending. Wilder grief has seldom been witnessed. Many of the passengers were children. Captain Williun Eaton swam for some time with both legs broken. The boat reached him just too late and he went down. Two pilots were killed. Ihe firemen wore all killed, and tho engineer and his wife inj ured. It is impossible to correctly estimate the loss of lives ; by Borne it is supposed that at least thirty or forty persons are still buried in the debris of the wreck or at the bottom of the bay. A diver has gone to the scene. The Ocean Wave has been for Borne time considered an unsafe boat, and has always been unlucky, 'the appearance of the boiler indicated that it had yielded through rottenneeß, as it had been torn apart in a long eeam. Had it exploded with greater violence the destruction of life would have been more general. The force of the explosion was directed upward and forward.