The Portland daily press., 1893-11-06
LATER PARTICULARS.

LATER PARTICULARS.
People Found Insane from Fear-C Children
Searched the Ruins for their Dead
Parents-Night Made Hideous by the
Noise of Falling Buildings.
| Madrid, November 5.-An official dis
patch from Santander this evening says
the bodies of 1855 persons killed by the
dynamite explosion aboard the ship Fri
day night have been recovered Search
is still in progress and many persons are
missing. At present 100 persons are un-
der treatment for injuries received Fri
day night The damage to property
| amounts to several million francs. This
evenings dispatches show that it was not
the ship Volo on which the explosion oc-
| CURED but the Cabo Machico. She was
discharging 1000 tons Of iron, many bar
rels of petroleum and -four and several
wine sacks. The captain had declared
that he had only twenty cases of dyna-
allowed to dock. The fire started at 8
Friday afternoon in the coal bunkers.
The customs officers and police fastened
to remove the twenty cases of dynamite
and soon landed it at a safe distance from
the vessel. A tug was then chartered to
tow the vessel seaward. In the mean
time desperate efforts were made to
| quench the flames. The captain and
crew of the steamer Alfonso XII. boarded
the burning vessel to help fight the
flames. They worked for an hour and
a half without success. At the end of
that time the fire reached the petroleum
and then came series of explosions, as
the flames went from barrel to barrel of
| the petroleum until they reached the
contra band dynamite. The tug had just
been moored alongside the vessel and
many townspeople had gone aboard to
satisfy their curiosity or help extin-
guish the fire. Then came the explosion
Of the dynamite. All on board the
Cabo Machico and along the dock were
blown to atoms. The tug vanished and
the quay with it's enormous crowd of
spectators rose in the air. People scat
tered in every direction and firebrands
fell in showers over the sea and land for
radius of mile and half More than
100 houses were set on fire by the falling
firebrands. The survivors ashore fed
shrieking leaving the promenade adjoin-
ing the quay streWn with the dead and
dying mangled remains of human bodies
Many fugitives were thrown down and
trampled upon. The fire burned un-
checked throughout the night. Block
after block sank into ruins. Every
street near the water front was filed
with the noise of crashing buildings.
Thousands of people abandoned their
homes and fed to fields or outlying viii
lages Others remained to search for lost
friends or relatives. Children whose
parents were dead wandered weeping
through the streets calling for help
During Saturday morning as many of
them as possible were collected at the
town and hall fed and clothed. In the
afternoon many injured persons insane
from terror or pain were found crouching
IN alleyways and outhouses far from the
scene of the fire. Today all the shops are
closed and the street are deserted except
by few mourners looking for their
dead in, the ruins Nest OF the houses
left standing are en- mlty. The occupants
who fled on the night of the fire are
afraid to return.
The sea was tossed as if by an earth
quake. Tremendous waves broke up over
the water front and large vessls were
tossed like shells against the docks. 1t
was stated that the contraband dynamite
was concealed beneath a lot of iron and
raw hides in the lower hold of the Cabo
Machico adjoining the bunker where
the fire started. Probably the exact
truth will never be known because al
most everybody who could throw light
upon the matter including the customs
officers were killed. An eye witness says
the effect of the explosion resembled the
result of violent earthquake. Water,
mud and stones from the bottom of the
harbor were thrown high in the air.
Santander, where the above explosion
occurred, is the capital of the province of
the same name. 1t has population of
about A. 600. The town is situated on
the inside of a rocky peninsula which
separates it from the Bay of Biscay and
forms magnificent harbor from two to
three miles wide and four miles long. A.
very large amount of shipping is done at
Santander, the chief exports consisting
of iron ore to Great Britain and wine to
France 1t contains two strong CASTLES
and has royal foundry for cannon,
anchors and bombs, also various manu-
factories.
The city is divided into an upper and
lower town and contains few buildings
of special interest. The cathedral was
originally Gothic structure, but has
been SO altered by later additions that
little of the old work remains. The city
is essentially modern and it's chief
features are its well built houses it's