STEAM ACCIDENTS IN AMERICA.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 46, 21 January 1843, Page 184

STEAM ACCIDENTS IN AMERICA.

The explosion of the steamer Edna, at the mouth of the Missouri, took place on the 3d of July, as she was just leaving the shore, when the flues collapsed, one at the forward and the other at the after end of the boiler, sweeping the decks fore and aft. Of the persons killed and wounded by the explosion, thirty-eight were Germans, from Dusseldorf, on the Rhine, twelve Americans, one Frenchman, one Mexican, one Englishman, and two coloured .persons. The dead rooms of the Hospital were full, and it was almost impossible for friends and relatives to distinguish some of the corpses. A postscript in the St. Louis Bulletin of the 4th states the number that had died up to eleven o'clock, p.m., of the 3rd, at thirty-three. The explosion of the high-pressure steamer Shamrock, on the lake above La Chine, on her way to Kingston, was very disastrous. The Montreal Herald's account of the accident is heart-rending : — " There were on board of her at the time about one hundred and twenty persons, of whom between sixty and seventy are supposed to be killed. The passengers were composed of English, Irish, and Scotch; of whom the English are supposed to have suffered most, from being in the fore part of the ship."