FEARFUL EXPLOSION IN ROME.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 38, 26 June 1891, Page 29

FEARFUL EXPLOSION IN ROME.

(From a Special Correspondent of the Liverpool Catholic Timet.) Eablt on St. George's Day Rome became the scene of a catastrophe which waß attended with the most disastrous consequences. Fortunately, the loss of life is email, but the damage done to property is enormous. At ten minuten past seven in the morning a severe shock was felt throughout the city. The earth trembled, buildings shook, and a tremendous report luudrr than thunder was heard. A* the same moment windows were shattered in all directions. Women ran shrieking into the streets, and the no : se ciuaed by the breßkirg glass and the echois cf the report led everyone to believe that buildings were falling in every direction. The confusion was indescribable. Peoplo in the churches found the windows falling about their ears. Priests saying Mass were surprised at the altar by a shower of glass and dust, while the gener d panic was increased by the fact that the origin of the disaster was unknown. Shortly, however, a ti.ick column of smoke was perceived in the direction of Porto PoNeae, and it soon became known that an explosion had occurred at the Powder Magazine about three miles from the city walls. The magazine was situated on the side of <\ hill well coverel with vineyards and miny buildings. When the powder was first stored there many remonstrances were made about the danger cf having it ■o near the city. But the Government, bent on surrounding Rome with forts, persisted in their intention, and large quantities of. cartridges were stored there. Shortly before the explosion two soldiers on duty were wa/ced by a captain of the approaching calamity. Ih«y escaped, but he was thrown down by the force of tha shock and severely injured. He still lies in a precarious condition, but it is hoped that he will recover. Many others in the neighbourhood were enabled by timely warning to escape, but the great anxiety was to save the boys at the Vigna Pit. This is a large agricultural school founded by Pius IX., for the purpose of instructing poor boys in agriculture and the care of vines. The greater pan of the lads were told to run over the bill and got safely away. The youngest ones were gathered under a vault which the Brother in attendance thought the safest place in the case of an accident, 80 in the event it proved. The building was completely wrecked. The vault alone escaped, and the Brother had the satisfaction of Baying his boys from anything worse than cuts from falling glass and some bruises. Others were not so fortunate. A poor Dominican friar was struck down in his garden and was carried away to die. In another place, from a mass of fallen masonry and timber, a hand was Been opening and shutting convulsively, mutely appealing for help. Every effort to rescue the unfortunate man was made, but dibris continued to fall in as fast as it was cleared away sad the task was a hope'esa one. la every direction from the scene

of the explosion are ruined houses and other buildings, the walli of which, in most cases, alone remain. In the first reports of the accident it was paid that the Basilica of St. Paol Outside the Walls had suffered considerably. The damage to the building was, however, confined to the ff • ide, now in process of erection, and to the stained-glass windows in the nave, which are completely shattered. Leaving the scene of the accident, the loss to property ia leu striking. Some factories near the Porta Portese had the tiles stripped off their roofs, and in many places the shatters and woodwork of the windows are torn away or shattered. In the Trasttvere t early all the glass is broken, and some of the churches were closed for a short time. At St. George in Velabro, where the feast was being kept, the sprigs of box which it is here customary to strew in the churches on such occasions were mingled with the fragments of the church windows. St. John Lateran has tost a great deal of glass inside the church as well as the windows, St. Andrea delle Fratte has lost every pare of glass in the church and a great deal of the woodwork as well. At the Gesu there was a second tragedy later in the day. A man who was mending the broken windows there fell from the ladder on to the marble pavement of the ohurch and was killed. There ia probably not a church in Rome that has not lost ita glass to some extent, but nowhere has the loss been so great as at the Tatican. The painted window on the Grand Staircase is a complete wreck. On the first staircase the erormous stained-glass windows representing bS. Peter and Paul, whiob were the gift of the late King Maximilian of Bavaria to Pius IX. and which are familiar to every one who has visited Rome, are entirely rained. The Loggie of Rafael lost nearly every pane, though the upper Loggie was almost uninjured. The whole Cortile of St. Damasus looks aB if it bad been bombarded. Even the clock haa lost its face. The Pope's Library was laid open to wind and weather, though the room where the Holy Father was at the time was unharmed. But the Audience Chambers were so damaged that the audience which waa to have been held on th»t day, and to which I was invited, had to be postponed. St, Peter's is in tie same plight as the Vatican, while the Hall of the Beatification has had nearly all its panes swept away. The entire extent of the damage is yet unknown. It is estimated already at enormous sums, while tbo question is being raised as to who is responsible. The whole catastrophe is a warning as to surrounding a city of monuments such as Rome with such dangerous neighbours, and it is to be hoped the Italian Government will le*rn the lesson and evacuate th' 1 other magazineß without farther delay.