Antwerp Dynamite Explosion

Feilding Star, Volume XI, Issue 50, 15 October 1889, Page 2

Antwerp Dynamite Explosion

(Per E.M.S. Zealandia.) : V Dynamite exploded in the : cartridge factory in the vicinity of the Bourse, at Antwerp, on September 6, killing many people. The factory was adjacent ;to thepetroleum stores, and two large Russian, petroleum warehouses were on fire. Fully ■ 25,000,000 cartridges were in arid about the premises. None of the employes of the factory were found alive,, nor was there a corpse intact. The explosion was like an earthquake and broke every window in the city. Troops l and firemeoworked in relays ; some were taken to the hospital, some were suffocated' by smoke^ others shot through and through by flying, projectiles, or maimed by the falling debris. Bullets flew around like hailstorms, and those who sought to escape through the streets wejfce shot down in" their tracks. A numbei: of sailors arid Custom officers were.ktfled oh board, the ships by flying bullets, the shipsjwere riddled^ by the. mißiilesi: A It is estimated .that 2000 tons of cartridges' exploded. The noise was ieard for thirty miles, and: : with the smoke that filled tfieair^, ryas ?■■■'• Jike that ,of a great baittlel effect was heightened ty the explosion of bar- A rels of oil,. and the falling ruins, limbs, and-fragmeirts;' -of bodies were found ■at ; incredible distances from the scene, in ■ome cases half a jmije away. , . Over 130 whole corpses lay in the morgue, while * charred heaps, of human remains represented the unknown dead. "Many persons, cut off from the city pursued by the flames, lumped into the Biver Scheldt" and were drowned by the dozen, or were burned to death by. the blaairig oil that poured upon the surface of the: water. The number of dead will reach 200 and over. M. Uervillion, the proprietor of the cartridge factory where^ the explosion took place, was put under arrest. The official report shows 135 persons killed' 20 missing. 100 seriously and 2Oo>lightly injured.': -■; ■.■-■--;;■ -'--;— ; -^;^?;' ■ ; *-""v