Another Disaster

Hokitika Guardian, 15 October 1928, Page 4

Another Disaster

AT CHARFIELD. LONDON, Oct. 13. A mail train and a London Midland freighter collided at Char field, in Gloucestershire. The mail . train caught fire. It is believed that seven were killed, while many were injured. The disaster occurred at five o’clock in a dense fog. An empty freight train was backing into a siding, and the express mail struck it head on". Three of the latter’s coaches telescoped, instantly caught fire and became an inferno. Nine bodies ba/ve been vecovereid, while there are twenty-six victims in Hospital. The express driver jumped clear, whereas the fireman is still imprisoned in the wreckage and likewise the freight train’s engineman. „ .

SHOCKING PARTICULARS.

(Received this day at 9.25. a.m.) LONDON, Oct. 13.. The Charfield smash occurred under abridge carrying a road over a railway, close to a station. A mail train caught a freighter with a crash which awakened sleepers for two miles around and then overturned on the opposite line, on which a second freighter was passing. '

A fire broke out immediately amid the piled up wreckage. The screams of women and children mingled with the roaring steam from the engines. One of the freighters had a petrol waggon which smashed and. sent up a blaze. The bridge was so burnt that it has been declared unsafe for traffic. The vehicles of the mail train were completely ‘ burned -before the "fire was extinguished, the debris smouldering, and occasionally bursting into flame 12 hours after the crash. Hundreds of villages rushed from their beds, but they experienced the awful position of having to stand idly by, listening to cries and unable to approach until firemen found water. “It was like a great bon-fire” declared a spectator, “we did not know where to start. The carriages were like ovens. A little girl with both legs broken was the bravest I saw.’,’ A man dashed from the blazing coach and cried: “I have lost my luggage,” and dashed Lack. He was not’ seen again. A post office sorter, who in war time was a victim of shellshock, lost his Reason and had to he forcibly carried from the scene. . ' /

A terrible story is told iby Louis Huntly, who was still last night among the ruins vainly seeking his sister. “I smashed a window and lowered my wife safely.- I then found my sister was pinned down and unmoveable from the waist downwards. While I was working, a fire broke out in .the next compartment. I threw the full weight of my body against the woodwork, but could not free her. The flames crept nearer inch by inch, until the partition was ablaze. My sister was calling out, ‘Save me! Get me out!’ I went mad. Ten men could not have freed her. I fought on until I smashed my shoulder blade, rendering the left arm useless. My sister cried, ‘Save yourself, Louis.’ Then the flames swept over her and I fell. I was taken to Bristol with my wife. Then they bought me back here to identify a woman, but.she was not my sister.” It is since established that Huntly’s sister, Mrs Johnston is among those dead.