Fatal Explosion at Stepney.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 162, 24 July 1886, Page 9

Fatal Explosion at Stepney.

Two men were killed and four persons seriously injured by a boiler explosion at the mattress-factory, in Rhodeswellroadj Stepney, on May 31st. The foice of the explosion blew away the ground floor and filled the building with steam. A butcher, named Joseph Stead, who lives directly opposite, hearing the appeals of the women inside the factory for help, ran forward, ! and had reached the.entrance to the works, when the front walls fell out, and the building; collapsed. Stead was burried in the debris. From the heap of ruins could be heard appeals for help from the women and gtrle. In abont three-quarters of an hour the firemen reaohed those who were not so deeply buried in the rpins ; and as the sufferers were rescued, they. were sent. to the London Hospital. As the work of extrication proceeded, the "firemen found " the body of James Grant, the stoker. Life was quite extinct, and the body was] removed to the mortuary; About 4 o'clock the body of George Richardson, the engine driver, was found wedged beneath some heavy timber near the bpiler.v; About 15 persoob in all \wero/mjaredJ''buV:fdiir-- : -only were detained • J a,t, / thje;hbj3pi^Cr'\t/-i:-- ; --"' : ' r^'' ; '^':- : " :; "'" '.'-.

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