A HUGE EXPLOSION

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 85, 7 October 1918, Page 7

A HUGE EXPLOSION

DISASTER IN JERSEY CITY

HEAVY DAMAGE AND GREAT.LOSS

OF LIFE,

(DNITED PRESS.ASSOCIATION. —COPYRIGHT.) (ADSIBAUAN-NEW ZEALAND CABLE • ASSOCIATION.) NEW YORK, sth October. The explosion of a magazine of T.N.T. (trinitrotoluol) at Pertbamboy, New Jersey, resulted in tbe destruction of a GillespHe plant and in great loss of liwe. A series of explosions occurred, and scattered shells, which exploded everywhere. | The concussions shook New York and. ! smashed innumora-ble -windows, and a j dozen towns in the vicinity were shaken. Buildings on all sides in Perthamboy were destroyed. More than 2000 men were working in I tbe plant when the explosion occurred, I and an unofficial estimate gives the nun;----j her of dead as .140, while hundreds arc not yet accounted for, a-nd hundreds more are injured. Many of the workers were. j trapped by the barbed-wire fence surI rounding: tie plant. Twenty-five firemen | are roported to have inst their lives, j Enormous fires are- raging, and.the surrounding areas are being abandoned. Two thousand people left the -neighbourhood during the night, asd the communities around Morgan, -where the plant wae situated, have been abandoned completely. The roads are thronged and the scene is comparable u-ith those in the early days of the. war in Belgium. While a trainload of explosives stood on the track near the plant an unknown fireman jumped on board, started the locomotive, and took the cars out of daiii gc,r. Then a, shell struck him, killing i him instantly. j The Mayor of New York ordered, the subways leading to the New Jersey shore to be closed. j The' damage is estimated at five milI lions sterling. Refugees allege that they saw an aeroplane flying- over the works before the explosion occurred.