50 Gas Cylinders Blow Up

Hokitika Guardian, 5 December 1922, Page 3

50 Gas Cylinders Blow Up

P.CRNTNG MOTOR-WAGON. LONDON, Oct 1. A four-ton motor-wagon, loaded with 40 cylinders of oxygen and 10 cylinders of hydrogen, biew up near Haddlesey, Yorkshire, yesterday. So groat was the explosion that Haddlesey itself, a mile away, was shaken and the detonations could he heard .six miles away. The wagon was h nig driven i'rom Sheffield to the RritKh Oxvgen depot rit iiuii. The driver, Peiey Handcock. was travelling at about l( miles an hour. About a mile south if Haddlesey a passing motorist shouted. “Wagon on fi/e.” Ha'.ndcock looked round and saw that the (lames v.ire enveloping •the wagon and wt.re fully 22ft high. Handcock knowing the dangerous nature of the wagon's load, rushed practically into the furnace and. tried ,to get the cylinders out if the burning vehicle. Police-Superintendent R J. Smith, of Nottingham, who was passing in his motr-enr saw Ilandc >■ It’s danger, lie rushed in and grab'.nng the driver by 'the coat dragged him away from the horning wagon to safety. A minute later, when the couple had got dear, there came the explosion, which was heard at Knottingley and Carlton, six miles away in opposite directions. One cylinder went up like a rocket of 151) feet and dropped, in a field a quarter of a mile distant. Other cylinders followed ,n 'quick succession, and tho countryside was littered with parts of cylinders, fragments of the wagon, and petrol cans. Supt. R. J. Smith, of the, Notts County Police Force said: “I was motoring hack to Ni lliiud'am along the Great North RLoad. When we were about four miles south of Selhv we saw a .commercial lorry going' towards Hull. A llame shot up from beneath the drivers’ feet and leapt towards Ihe wea then- board.

Tho .driver jumped off the lorry and ran round to the other side to get an extinguisher. When ho lifted the board no to get at the fire the, flames spurted out again. By this time we had caught u)) to him. 1 gol out of my car and was throning some sand olf the side of the road on to the Hanics to put them out. “While doing so I happened to ask him v.ha.t his lorry nas loaded with, and e replied, ‘Cylinders of oxygen.’ I said to him. ‘ I hen cleav out as quickly as you can!’ “The noise of the explosions was tremendous. ft was like shells going off.”