A HORRIBLE EXPLOSION.

Kumara Times, Issue 1168, 26 June 1880, Page 3

A HORRIBLE EXPLOSION.

The' following is an extract from " Silver Pen's" San Francisco letter to the Auckland Herald:— You.must be prepared for horrors, my dear friends, for I have not told you that this letter, is to be small edition of the Newgate Calendar ? Over the Bay there stands a pretty little village called Berkley, where the grass is green, and the flowers are beautiful in a superlative degree even here. Near Berkley Btands the Giant Powder Works. One evening lately, when stillness had fallen on the world in general, and quiet people were sitting happily over the five o'clock tea, in country fashion, a terrible sound caused the entire population to turn out. As We have had during the whole of April terrific rainstorms, with shocks of earthquake and other novelties, caused by the breath of the weather fiend, every One expected that one grand earthquake was about to swallow up the whole village, or that a thunderbolt had the intention to finish it off after i+s own fashion. It however, to be the powder works, whieh had blown up, carrying four and twenty human and Caucasian—into eternity instanter. The scene of the disaster Was quickly found and visited, but no words can paint the horrors that met the eye. Five thousand pounds of giant powder had exploded, literally cutting up the victims into shreds,— toes, hands, and feet were distributed freely about, the pigtails of the Chinese being the only thing that escaped unharmed, one being found in a tree 3jOThfards from the spot. A shower of must have literally fallen for the space. of two miles from the spot, as lumps of such, varying from an inch to a quarter of a yard, were found in the trees, on the housetops, and strewing the fields and gardens far distant, the larger fragments have been hurled into the Bay. Wiudows of Houses three miles away were dashed tc atoms, and the largest threes in' the v cinity were-twisted like reeds.. For two/,-days . afterwards.. the .hills were coveredewid* Women and cljal'dr-en pick

ing up the fragments aud putting them in sacks, No remains were found perfect, but the coroner sorted them as well as he was able to, filling eight coffins with the ghastly debris of the white men, aud six coffins with the remains of the Chinese. A boy who was driving a team fifty yards from the spot was blown to atoms together with the team, and not a particle of which was ever found. The funeral of the whites was a terrible spectacle; mothers, wives, and children rending the air with their cries. Truly the happy, smiling month of April has been one full of rnin and disaster.