EXTRAORDINARY ACCIDENT.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 89, 3 August 1876, Page 2

EXTRAORDINARY ACCIDENT.

On Saturday (says the London " Mail," of Juile 5) an accident occurred at -St. George's Hospital, BDyde Park comer, which naturally excited great alarm, although it has not been attended with the dreadful results at first very generally supposed in London to have followed it. A large iron tank had been erected some time ago at the top of the building to supply water at high pressure throughout the hospital- Soon after eleven in the morning of Saturday a little water was observed trickling from the ceiling of the top ward, and immediately afterwards the t.a.nV burst with a loud report, and its contents, variously estimated at twenty and and forty tons of water, poured through the top ward, the next ward below that, and the room on the ground floor which is appropriated to the students and to the use of the Coroner for inquests. The two wards through which the great volume of water passed are women's wards, and great panic prevailed, which must necessarily have had a bad effect upoii the health of many of the patients. Severe injuries wex-e also suffered from contusions. The water bore down with it broken beams, masses of plaster, iron, and other building material, and in the top ward (Wright's ward), two women, Rosa Stretton and Sarah Gomez, and in the ward next below (Holland's ward), Jane Halliday, werevery seriously injured by the falling masses. Their recoveryaS -'still doubtful. In the students' room .--three' gentlemen* were very much 'inj-areTft."*' flight's and' Holland's wards, and the whole of the : lower part of the hospital were flooded. The water swept along the corridors and into many of the rooms on the lower floor, and found its way out by washing through the entrance doors and through the basement into the sewers. .It had not all escap.ed by nightfall. Great crowds collected round the spot on Saturday afternoon to observe the da,mage done to the building. No death has yet resulted from the accident, but the sufferers mentioned are by no means out of danger.