THE BIG EXPLOSION.

Hokitika Guardian, 24 September 1921, Page 3

THE BIG EXPLOSION.

AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION. j LATEST NEWS. I BERLIN, September 22. The explosion killed numbers of French soldiers guarding Oppnu road and also injured a number who were boating on the Rhine The estimated damage to the Aniline works is 150 million marks. Rescue parties a rc< searching the ruins and 750 bodies have been decovercd. The injured exceed the first estimates. Already 2500 have been treated. The whole available medical personnel of tile French army of the Rhine are assisting. The French High Commissioner has also arranged for the distribution of food and has given seven ty-five thousand marks to Trades Unions to assist to relieve Hie- distress. 1,500 DEATHS FEARED. DAMAGE OYER £7,000,000. PARIS, Sept. 22 The Oppnu district where lladische dye works explosion happened, now resembles a tract of country thin lias been bombarded by big guns, and then swept by earthquake. The- scene of tile central explosion is now a funeral shaped hole 130 yards square ami 15 yards deep. Elsewhere there are big "talers tilled with uprooted trees, and sections ol the. roofs, beneath which the arms, legs and hands of the victims are continually found. The fields for miles around icscinhles a shambles. A detachment of Eicuch soldiers is on duty at Oppau. Every building in Oppnu wit limn exception, has collapsed or been unroofed. I.udwigshafen is a vast hospital. All the schools there have been converted into hospitals and mortuaries. Tirole lias been *sll belies alre.id removed from the mills. I In*: , lore i. is believed that the death ro'l v i! 1 1 " 1500. The damage totals at least Ci.u'ld,000 sterling. LESSONS OF THE DD ' -Ti 5 PARIS. Sept. 23. The Flench army of >eeiip;iiion is already supervising ihc p'lid work i i the green poison gas at Oppau. which is still overclouding everything. It necessitates the wearing of gas masks. The dead include a large number <4 children. The surviving families arc. camping in the fields. Major l.clehuiv. Osgnniscr ol the war-lime I nter-Allied Commission of Chemical Munition Experts, writing in the ••Daily News,” emphasises the danger to any nation having a monopoly' of the world’s supplies of potmitial explosives and poison gas. lie added: ”1 fail m *ec Im« any disarmatnent attempts at the Washington Conference or hv Hie League nt Nations will lie cHectivo miles* this pin Ll.on is dealt with. II this disa-’v' serves to attract the world's a I tent cm to the hitherto ignored issue ol ehemical disarmament, it will have a farreaching and beneficial result io tile world.” SERIOUS BLOW TO ( HEM R AG INDUSTRY. BERLIN, Sc.pt. ‘23 The magnitude of the explosion can he gathered from the fact that in addition to 4000 tons of explosives, nine, gasometers went hurling int o I'm* air each containing 50.0(10 cubic maters ut gas. The disaster has given the chemical industry such a serious blow tlm* its restoration will require as much energy as its creation. TURK is * \ mins \USTItAI lAN AM) N.Z. CAP!.I*. \SMK t\TION GREEKS FALL RACK. LONDON. Sc]itamhur 22 The ‘Times’’ Constantinople coircspoudent reports that the latest, iotmmaiion in that the (Irceks have ia!l">) hack to a line running front Misaly to the. heights cast of Sivt i*lii**ar. The Greeks did not pursin’ the Kemalists