A GREAT DISASTER. SEVERAL HUNDRED LIVES LOST.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 411, 16 October 1889, Page 5

A GREAT DISASTER. SEVERAL HUNDRED LIVES LOST.

Antwkri", September 6. — A terrible catastrophe, thoconsequencesof which are yet incalculable, took place at Antwerp this afternoon. Afc2.ls o'clock a terrific explosion wa3 heard, even as far as Ghent. The whole town was shaken, and immediataly afterward ib seemed as though a rain of glass was falling over the surrounding country. There is not a whole window in Antwerp. Even the nia^nificonb stained glass windows of the cathedral were destroyed. Tho towns people were panic-stricken. It was at first thought that an earthquake had taken place, bub suddenly the 9un, which was shining brightly, was obscured by an impenetrable cloud of smoke, tinped by the red glare of a great fire. Ib was near the port and just behind the dry docks that the catastrophe took plate, in a powder magazine belonging to M. Corvillian, a merchant, who had recently purchased 40,000,000 old cartridges, intending to sell the powder. His workpeople, over 100 in number, more than half of them being women, were occupied in the task of opening these cartridges when the explosion took place. To what it is due there is very little hope of discovering, for not one of M. Corvillian's employees has as yet been found alive. In fact, nob a single corpse has been found intact. Ib was not only in the Corvillian factory tbab lives were lost. A large number of persons were also more or less severely wounded by pieces of glass, and bhe roof 3 of several houses fell in. For a great distance all around the ground was strewn with cartridges and debris of all kinds. All was nob over yet, however. A fow moments after the explosion a vast sheet of llame leaped up into the sky, and it was seen that a petroleum warehouse nob far from the powder magazine was on fiie. Even in bioad daylight the blaze of 40,000 barrels of petroleum on fire was visible at a distance of over thirty miles at Brussels. Then the Maison Hydraulique of Antwerp, which furnishes the motive power for all the cranes and other machines of the port, suddenly gave way and became a heap of ruins. E>ery where in the streets were wounded persons, and at frequent interval? one came across parts of human frames, such as legs and arms. The petroleum mart is still ablaze, and the heat is so great that ib is impossible to approach within several hundred yards of the conflagration. The spectacle is terribly superb, and there is nothing in recent history that can be compared bo it save the scene which Paris presented during the last days of the Commune and the great fire in Chicago. The fire has spread in all directions in the city. Warehouses in which 20,000 to. 25,000 barrels of petroleum are stored are on tire, as are many of the vessels in the docks. The Scheldt resembles a river of fire. The whole of the garrison and a large part of the male population of bhe town are aiding the firemen, bub their efforts are simply useless. It is impossible even roughly to estimate the number of persons killed, bub suppositions range from 200 to 400, while there are certainly 1,000 persons injured. The latest information is that fchereare 150 half-burned corpses in tho hospitals. The population is in a state of panic, for though the fire at present is confined to the neighbourhood of the port, it could scarcely be prevented from gaining the town were the wind to turn to the north. Midnight.— The latest estimate is that there are 300 killed and about 1,000 wounded. The explosions continue. At the American docks all the ships have been saved, owing to the favourable direction of tho wind.