AT LEAST 400 CHILDREN KILLED

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 55, 20 March 1937, Page 5

AT LEAST 400 CHILDREN KILLED

— Press Assn.

Terrific Explosion and Fire at Texas School VICTIMS TRAPPED IN BUILDING Hysterical Parents Search The Debris

(By TelegTaph

— Copyrigbt.)

(Received 20, 8.45 a.m.) ° OVERTON (Texas), March 19. It is estimated that at Ieast 450 children and teachers were killed in an explosion at the New London High School, blowing off the roof and razing three walls. Most of the 1300 students were in the auditorium, which was in the direct path of the blast. The roof of the building lifted in the air and crashed back on the collapsing wall, and fire followed. Many children are reported to have been trapped in the building. Horrified parents ran frantically about, seeking some word regarding the fate of their children, Many bodies were mangled beyond identification, and scores of children were admitted to hospital. Ambulances and physicians from neighbouring towns were pressed into service. Ihe cause of the explosion has not been definitely defermined; it was at first thought that it occurred in the furnace in the boiler-room. However, it was later learned that there was no boiler in the buildinf, which was heated by natural so-called "wet g^s" from the nearby field. It seems likely that the leoking gas, which is odorless, accumulated under the building and was ignited by the flame of one of the radiators, which a few hours before had been lit when the temperature fell to 50 degrees.

The total inside the building at the tane of the blast has been definitely fixed at 738. Three hundred feet away, in the gymnasium, a separate building, 50 mothers were attonding a parents' and teachers' meeting. The noise of the explosion cause d a rush to the windows, and wher© the school had stood they saw only a heap of twisted steel and bricks and broken concrete, from which. flames were shooting. Screamingly hysterieally, tlre mothers xaced across the carnpus and claw8d with bare hands to reach the children, whose cries could be heard beneath the debris. The nearby oiifields "were closed, and workers who were fathere of children, fiurried to the scene, 'There were so many rescuers that they at first handieapped and- impeded'onn another. The Sta^e police'arrived and restofed order and assigne'd tasks to'the reseuers. Darkness" threatened'to halt the activity, but oi!" company ' electrieians strung Jtiuge'fldodligKts' over the wreckage,' and the"f es'cne work and the search forJbodies bontinued. , Oue hundred bodies were recovere.d shortly after dark,*and the injured were taken to ehurcfi'e's* ahd homes. Twelve unihjured children wero f ound saved by a bookc'ase which held off the mortax and bricks." ' The sehool enrolment was more than 1,500, but the.younger children had been" dismissed. . It lacked only ten minutes* to dismissal time for the xemainder when ihe blapf occurred. Many youhger children piaying in the eampua saw the building colfapse. A teacher waa direeting a claas in physical exejcises 1QQ yards from tho echbol when a .fiyiag brick atruck and jsilled one boy. ?f , ,the group. The Superintendeat, . Mr. Sfiaw, was walking across the carnpus at the time, and said his own son, aged 17, waa inaide. The 'latter is bejieved dead. Hours after the explosion tJrp screams and moana of the injured could yet be heard from the wreckage, givtng rise to the hope that the death toll might be less than was at. first feared, but the Superintendent, Mr. Shaw, said many of Ihe aurvivors were so Injured that. it vras impossibie for them to live. ' The little community of New London has no hospital facilities. A hospital is located a few miles away at Overton, 100 miles east of Dallas, where there are only the ecantiest facilities. The achool was part of a 1,000, OGO-dollar edueational plant serving two school districtg. It waa completely modern and surrounded on all sides by oil derricks. Witnesses said the explosion was not loud— just a muffled boom and tumbling udise as' the building disintegrated.