Arizona republican., 1917-12-09

Ildl4ldA LloIS ulleIly U6HOilohou bhoh any of Belgium or France. The ruin is complete.
 The Richmond district in the north end, where the poorer people lived, ex- tends along the Narrows, a channel rightly named. It was in these waters that the French intuition ship Mont Blanc inward bound with a government pilot aboard, was rammed amidship | by the Norwegian steamer Imo, pro- ceeding outward with a cargo for the relief of the Belgians.
 How this crash not of itself serious, ripped open on the decks tanks of ben zine that trickled down to the engine l room and started a blaze that wrecked | part of Halifax never will be explained 1 to the satisfaction of the peoSle here, | still dazed by the terror of the giant | blast.
 Nearly every house in the district fell with a crash. In nearly all of these fires started and men, women and ! children mostly children - were crushed to death or mangled under the debris which a moment later was a | roaring flame
 There was no chance of escape. The i horror surrounding the burning to 1 death of hundreds who were unable to move is realized here, but this town | has not yet awakened to the enorrloJj | loss of life.
 Some idea of the powerful havoc of the explosion was gained as the cor respondent viewed scores of trees, burly of trunk, that were literally snapped in two ten feet from the ground. Big brick structures came down with small Ter ones of frame, but it was in these modest dwellings that the greatest loss of life occurred. Fortunately it happened before hun dreds of children had gathered at the | big school in the heart of the district which was wrecked. But most of i these same youngsters were caught while playing about their homes | The steamer Mont Blanc lies across 1 the stretch of water from the section | 1t laid low, a cTumpled blackened heap. l Nearby, hard on the beach where it was driven by the explosion. lies the crippled relief ship, and nearer still the | Canadian cruiser Niobe stands with no apparent signs of damage. Other and smaller hulks offer mute evidence of the disaster, while fourteen hundred freight cars on the water front were i burned to the base
 All over this wide area the story is the saTe. There is a sloping hill that runs down to the water and at the top @ church stands with every window gone, it's wall cracked and it's steeple leaning like the Towe. of Pisa, Around and about on every side are the black and charre1 ruins where most of the congregation lived Further to the edge of the devastated area another church escaped but every window frame was ripped out clean.
 It was almost impossible to make progress over the streets because of
 the great drifts of snow It lay deep
 on the Wreckage, and tonight it had
 turned to a solid mass of ice that defied
 the attempts of searchers to dig
 through with picks.
 How long it will take this ice to
 thaW nobody knows. In any other time
 the blizzard yesterday would have
 caused much suffering but coming on
 top of the greater disaster it simply
 stunned thousands of volunteers not
 personally afflicted, and demoralized , all effort for concerted searching Right in the heart of this area, fires. , starting Thursday, blazed tonight like
 bonfires, and the crowds moving along
 the rough snow paths caught some thing that made the atmosphere here I well nigh unbearable. It was the odor , of burning flesh.
 ! The flames leave little trace and this
 fact may give substance to the new , official estimate of four thousand dead
 There was no accurate census of the
 population of the Richmond district f Families came and went and when whole families were lost there was nc one left to report their deaths. Pic
 ture two and a half square miles of
 homes torn down by an explosion and
 then left to the fury of the flames and the person thousands of miles away F can get an idea of the extent of the
 disaster
 There are dismantled buildings that
 have not yet been dragged down. The , walls lean at dangerous angles, and the g window blinds, coated with ice. kept 7 up an all-day Tapping as the WinC
 swept through. There are piles anC f piles of runs that no available force f at present here can clear away 1T weeks Not much will be found to hell
 solve the maddening riddle as to tn,
 number gone.
 Going out from the business sec.
 tion the newspaper correspondents ob.
 tained the first vivid impression il
 passing a wide, snow-covered parl
 with six hundred tents in which par
 of the homeless were being supplied
 with food and heat There were no
 houses enough to shelter them, but tn,
 fact stands out that while the city wa
 stunned Thursday, it provided uuar
 ters for every person in distress. Tn
 tent quarters were comfortable with | out doubt.
 Between this tented park and Rich | mOnd are the mOrgues. A four-stor'
 school building, badly damaged by tn
 jar, is the main mOrgue into whicl l f~aT s,,
 the missing. But the view was heart
 breaking to those who feared tn
 worst. for the bodies were burned ant
 blackened to such an extent that tn
 only chance of identification lay fl the possible finding of a trinket. o the three hundred in this morgue no more than fifty bodies had bee, claimed tonight.
 Various reports regarding Iarg numbers killed in certain building have been accepted generally as cor rect. Many of the injured died at sta tions while being removed to hospital and elsewhere. Heretofore it has bee more or less guesswork, but the office Tn charge of the morgues fixed fou thousand as the number killed. With everything buried under tn snow the search today was delaye while the main forces were deyotin attention to the injured. All vehicle have been communicated. An age l man on his way to search for his vii 4 was held up and the Pung sleigh take from him.
 1 An officer explained in kindly wa 1 that it was a life and death matt, q to take care of the wounded. Witho, 1 protest he gave up the rig. This mer, q ly illustrates the wonderful spirit I the entire community.
 3 Guards stood all around the ruine \ part of Halifax but this was for for l rather than for fact.