Strange Explosion at Sea.

Manawatu Herald, 28 May 1903, Page 2

Strange Explosion at Sea.

The captain of the steamer Nina* which arrived at‘ Marseilles, report# that at midnight on Match 28, when the vessel was thirty miles east of Oreux, at the entrance to the Gulf of Lyons, the men on watch heard an explosion and saw an immense tongue of flame leap upwards. The strange phenomenon lasted from fifteen to twenty seconds. At the same time the ship recoiled from a violent shook, as if she had struck jP rock. The captain was at a loss to account for the phenomenon, and did not know whether it was due to the sudden explosion of a vessel which sank immediately or to the eruption of a submarine volcano. At the marine headquarters at Marseilles it is supposed that the bright light may have proceeded from an explosion on board the Tambara, of the West African Company, which loft Marseilles a few days before with a large cargo of explosive materials. The hour at which the phenomenon was witnessed would coincide with the supposed route of the Tambara.