TRAIN SMASH.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 June 1921, Page 5

TRAIN SMASH.

’ IRISH REBELS’ CRIME. TROOP TRAIN DERAILEJi.- - FALL OVER EMBANKMENT. MINE EXPLODES UNDER LINE. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. London, June 24. Sinn Feiners derailed a train near Dundalk, which was conveying troops to participate in the King’s visit to Belfast. The train toppled over an embankment. The rebels exploded a, mine, wrecking the rear carriages. It was first reported that forty were killed, but the death roll is now said to be less. Eighty horses were killed. A military communique from Dundalk states that three Hussars and a guard were killed, twenty Hussars injured, and thirty horses killed. Received June 25, 5,0 p.m. London, June 24. The outrage occurred in a lonely and •mountainous district just over th ' Ulster border. Sinn Feinors exploded a mine, wrecking the rearmost carriages. There were 104 men on board, mostly 10th Hussars, commanded by Captain Lord William Montagu Scott, who was not injured. The explosion killed eighty horses, but the death roll is less serious than reported. A number of bodies, including that of the guard, are visible under the wreckage. Two men seen running away after the explosion were ehot dead by troops. — Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. DETAILS OF THE DISASTER. TRAP SET FOR THE TRAIN. APPALLING SCENES WITNESSED. MANY 7 HORSES KILLED. Received June 26, 5.5 p.m. London June 24. There is no doubt as to the authorship of the dastardly crime at Dundalk. A gang of armed rebels during the morning seized a party of workers on the line and imprisoned them in their huts, and, taking their tools, the rebels tori up the rails. They then awaited the up train and a mine was laid just before the train passed. Fifteen signal fires were counted on the mountains, evidently lit for the purpose of communicating the location of the train. Those exploding the mine fortunately failed to explode it at the right moment; otherwise many more Hussartl would have been killed. As it was, the engine jumped the gap and the front carriages were saved, though fifteen other compartments were smashed up and flung down a steep embankment, a second explosion knocking the tender off the rails.

The bottom of the embankment was piled iip with appalling wreckage, and the cries of maimed soldiers and the screams of mutilated horses were heartrending. Soldiers in the front of the train rushed up to help, while others sought out the train-wreckers. Two civilians who were seen running away and were killed are still not identified, and a third was wounded.

Meanwhile the scene of the wreckage was terrible in the extreme. Every now and then there was a pistol shot as a horse was put out of its agony, though some on their backs amid wreckage were kicking violently. The soldiers were almost as infuriated at the horses’ agonies as at the death of their comrades. One tiny polo pony called Tich, which was the regimental mascot, was terribly maimed, but the soldiers refused to shoot it until a last effort was made to save the animal. Fifty horses were thus killed in addition to thirty killed in the accident.

Though the telegraph wires in the vicinity were cut to prevent getting help, nevertheless doctors and ambulances quickly arrived.