GAS HOLDERS WRECKED

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3706, 20 October 1927, Page 1

GAS HOLDERS WRECKED

EXPLOSION AT MANCHESTER. NEIGH 130 UR HOO D SH A KEN. LONDON, Aug. 25. Eighteen people wci'O injured anti twi Jingo gas holders,■ each of which hole 1,750,0U0 cuhie feet of gas, wore wreck ctl in an explosion .Yesterday al'ternooi at Bradford Road gasworks, Alan chestcr.

Two explosions, which were heard a mile away, shook the neighbourhood, and flames 00ft high shot into the air. Women fainted, and others, picking up their children, ran from the danger none. The whole district was evaecuated, as it was feared that another gasometer—said to he the biggest in the world—would blow up. Fortunately it escaped. The force of the explosion blew a woman out of her bed and a man through his doorway. Another man was lifted eighteen inches from the ground. A perambulator, in which a baby was being wheeled by its mother, was struck, and both mother and child were burned about the face.

After the explosion, the cause of which is unknown, a sheet of flame swept the roadway. “Flames sixty feet high shot into tlio. air and a light ran round the sky like a blaze.” So said an eye-witness of the explosion. Within a few minutes of the explosion a strong force of firemen and engines arrived with three ambulances, and a body of police cleared the streets of people.

Ambulances, motor-cycles and sidecars were requisitioned to rush Ihe victims to hospital. The majority of the injured were sent home after treatment for burns and shock in Ancoats Hospital. Everybody in the neighbourhood, including shopkeepers, was ordered to leave, and schools were closed. The children were marshalled on the New Recreation Ground and sent home. FRANTIC WOMEN.

There were two explosions in quick succession, which were described as being like the thunder of giant guns in France. They were heard a mile away.

Air Frank Taylor, of Sandhani Street, said that when the explosion occurred some women fainted and others snatched up their children and dashed out of the danger zone.

Air Joseph Higgins, a draper, of Bradford Road, said that after the e.\' plosion lie saw a huge piece of wood hurled through the air. He thought it was an aeroplane. Then a moment afterwards lie was blown through his own doorway and into the shop. A hag of coal 400 yards away was set on fire by the sheet of flame that swept the roadway after the explosion, and a pane of glass ten feet square 400 yards away was blown clean out, leaving not a fragment of glass in the framework. HAIRBREADTH ESCAPE.

Airs Nora Hepwood, of Sandall Street, and her fourteen-months-old baby hoy had a remarkable escape. The mother was wheeling the child in the perambulator when .struck by the force of the explosion. Both she and the baby were burnt about the face and hands and taken to hospital. Air Jack Baniford was standing 200 yards away from the gasworks when the force of the explosion lifted him eighteen inches from the ground. One woman was blown out of bed. The wrecked gasometers, which now resemble crippled battleships, each held one and three-quarter million cubic feet of gas. Another gasometer which stands near by, and is said to hold eight million cubic feet of gas, and to he one of the biggest in the world, escaped. The cause of the accident is unknown.