The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1911-02-03
40 TONS OF DYNAMITE
EXPLODED.
30 MEN KILLED and 100 INJURED.
Two Tug Boats Nothing But Chaffed
Boards After Explosion Floating in
the Water Mans Head Found In
Rigging Of Another BOat-Ffelght
Car Hurled 20 feet in AIF-ShOckS
Felt 30 Miles Away.

Seventy thousand pounds of dyna-
mite, being unloaded from a freight
car to lighter, exploded at IL o'clock
| Wednesday at Pier No. z, Communi-
paw, N. J., $50 yards south OF the Jer-
sey City terminal Of the Central Rail
road Of New Jersey, and widespread
ruin followed.
Fifty men are believed to. have been
killed outright, and 100 persons, some
of whom at the time of the explosion
were five miles removed from Jersey
City, were seriously injured. Falling
bricks and splintered glass windows
aided in adding the names of thous-
and more persons to the list of in
jured.
The rush Of millions OF cubic feet
OF air to close the vacuum created by
the detOnation stirred the atmosphere
within radius Of 30 miles of Com
munipaw
The cause of the explosion is vari-
ously attributed to the dropping of a
case of dynamite and to a boiler eX-
plosion on the boat. Just what was
the direct cause will probably never
be known.
The Jersey Central terminal was
badly damaged, three ferryboats in the
slips were torn and splintered
The terminal officials of the Central
Railway Of New Jersey said tonight
that property .:alued at more than
100000, belonging to the company,
had been destroyed.
Only the most mcaSre scraps of in
formation could be CLEANED by the po-
lice when they arrived, although per-
sons in the vicinity had known that
at noontime there had stood long
| pier, moored to which were two tug
boats, and there was nothing except
a few charred boards floating on the
water few minutes after the hour.
All of these men, ii is believed, were
killed. The crew of the Whistler, four
in NUMBER are also among the missing
Besides the men on these two boats,
others who are missing were men en-
ployed as stevedores at the pier.
The two dynamite lighters were
tied fast to the northern side of Pier
No 1- Tt IL wide enough to premit of
four separate sets of tracks, and the
pier long has been used because of its
advantageous situation as the point
of transfer of dynamite and high ex-
plosives from freight cars to the
dynamite tugs.
The freight cars containing the eX-
plosive were two of a train of 20.
They were on the most northerly track
on the pier and as the tugboats moor
ed close by, the distance over which
the boxes of dynamite sticks need be
carried was not more than ID feet.
After the blast, in the rigging of the
Swedish three master Ingred, a mans
head hung. A little distance from it
was an arm, with the coat sleeve still
clinging to it.
A whole car of dynamite had been
picked up bodily, as if by a giants
hand, lifted off the pier and thrown
upon the stern of the Ingred The
trucks had remained on the twisted
tracks.
Cases OF the dynamite with which
the car had been filled were scattered
about the deck, many Of them smashed
to kindling wood, but the dynamite
had not exploded.
This freight car was hurled across
the 50-foot wide pier and fully 20 feet
in the air before it landed on the IN
gred's deck.
For 100 feet the pier end itself was
utterly demolished. The planking
seemed to have been ground to pow
der.
a steel gondola car on the south
ernmost track looked like an old hat
that had been used by boys for foot
ball.
In the train shed of the Central
Railway of New Jersey and Baltimore
and Ohio terminal nearly the whole
southern exposure of the glass roof
collapsed, showering the passengers
with broken glass. One man was
struck by 20-pound fragment and 50
severely cut that he died.
An engineer i'm ehunting locomo-
tive was blown from his cab and died
OF fractured skull. a tugboat cap
tain was hurled from his wheel
house and fished out Of the water 15
minutes later.
Inside the passenger station there
was damage visible everywhere.