Elmore bulletin. [volume] (Rocky Bar, Idaho) 1889-1906, 1896-02-26
TORN UP FOR ACRES
Scene Of DesoIation AMI Ruin at
johannesburg.
HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE KILLED
Few Whites Among the Victims. but
scores of Blacks, Malays and
Chinese perlshed.

Johannesburg. Feb. 20.-Details are
reaching this city today of what is
probably the most disastrous dynamite
explosion on record in any part of the
world.
Thousands of people have been rem
dered homeless by the terrible calamity.
About one hundred are believed to have
been killed two or three hundred men,
women and children severely wounded.
and many others more or less injured,
Niedendorp, the scene of the calamity,
is suburb of Johannesburg In it are
huddled the members of the poorer
classes whites, Malays, Kaffirs and
Cinnamon, who subsst for the most
part by doing odd jobs about the place,
which is a railway transfer station for
the mining districts. Among the freight
cars standing on the shunt to the mines
at Niedendorp yesterday were eight
trucks loaded with dynamite, hidden
under a canvass covering to protect Il
from the rain and sun AS evening was
approaching there was an explosion
near the freight depot so awful in in
tensity, that the ground for miles
/ around was conYulsed as if by an
earthquake, houses rocked and fell.
masses of iron, earth, stone, wood and
human remains We're hurled skyward,
the windows in almost every house III
johannesburg were broken and people
blown through the air like straws be-
fore gust of wind. The explosion had
torn hole 200 feet long and eight feet
wide over the spot where eight trucks
Of dynamite stood a few moments be-
fore. All that quarter of Johannesburg
was literally blown to pieces rhe eff
| fects of the explosion could be seen
| over a radius of more than a mile and
| almost everything within half mile
| of where the trucks had been shunted
| for the night was razed to the ground
| and crushed by the dynamite beyont
| redemption. Iron work was twisted ant
| torn, stones destroyed, and brick worf
| puiverized. on the ground were black
| ened shapes Of human remains, limbs
| heads, trunks sCorched and torn
The victims were mostly MalaYs
kati'irs and Chinese, the whites bainI
IN minority at Niedendorp, but quite
number of white people, including 81,
| girls, were killed In 10 minutes afte
| the explosion the bodies of 40 dead per
/ sons, horribly mutilated, were picket
up and carried away, while the search
ing of the ruins continued without IN
termission over 200 OF the most Sc
yerely injured persons were also ear
rled away, and hundreds of others Ia
ken to places where they might b,
| cared for
| Around the scene Of yesterdays ex
plosion the most narrowing scenes ar,
| witnessed by fathers looking for then
| children, wives staring blankly at whar
| seemed to be the remains of husbands
| the living many of them badly hurt
| themselves, hunting for traces Of then
| dead.
1t is definitely known that over t0i
| persons have been killed and about 20
wounded severely. In addition it is IS
! timated that 100 more have been less
severely injured.
popular subscription has beei
| opened for the relief Of the wounded anC
homeless Already over $500, 900 ha
| been raised. The amount of dynamit,
| which caused the terrific disaster is as
| eertained to have been 20 tons.