Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-03-04
FORTY DIE AS TINT
BLAST DEMOL|SHES
NEW JERSEY TOWN
Crashing Orders, Falling
Walls and Rain of Nitric
Acid Send Death Toll l'p-
ward in Explosion

NEW BRUNSWICK, N. J., March
2.-Forty persons dead. and hun
bred or more injured was estimated
last night as toll of an explosion
in the TINT plant of the Nixon Nj
tration works.
Flames showered through forty
] buildings of an adjoining celluloid
woxks and demolished the little in
h1ustrial town of Nixon. An accu-
fate check on the number killed was
impossible.
AS many of the victims, dead and
dying, as could be removed from the
blazing ruins were taken to a half
dozen hospitals and hastily equipped
emergency morgues. Their bodies
were so mutilated and burned that
only a few were identified
By nightfall twelve bodies were re-
ported recovered, and seven had been
identified tentatively. Spurred by
reports of survivors that score still
lay buried beneath the burning de-
bris, soldiers joined firemen. state
police and citizen volunteers in hoist
ing arc lights and beginning an all
night attack upon the twisted masses
of wreckage.
The explosion occurred at 1880 a..
M. in the ordnance salvaging plant.
The nitration works had been leased
to the Ammonite company for the
treatment of army TINT to be used
as agricultural fertilizer.
The building, two stories high, 300
feet long and of hollow tile construc-
ton, was literally blown from the
earth, along with the men believed
to have been within it. The shock
was felt for sixty miles, SCATTERING
windows, lifting roofs and topping
chimneys IN many ci>in5. On Staren
Island buildings rocked as if N an
earthquake.
Forty Buildings Demolished
The single destructive blast crush
ed forty buildings of the Nixon com.
pany's celluloid novelties manufac-
turing works, which surrounded the
INT plant, and RACED as if by shell
fire the encircIing dwellings of 200
employees whose little settlement was
known as the town of Nixon.
Through shattered roofs and crush
ed walls-upon piles of flimsy cellu-
loid sheets in every one of the Nixon
buildings-showered embers, blazing
TINT and boiling acid scattered by
the explosion. The blue flames Of
the ighly-inflammable celluloid with
which all the structures were filled,
burst forth en- the heels Of the blast,
like a huge blow-torch, destroying
every one and everything within a
radius of several hundred feet.
The screams of men and girls
pinned down by steel Orders, crush
ed by falling walls of tile or caught
beneath severed pipe lines which
showered them with nitric acid,
mingled with the cries of house
wives and children whose dwellings,
only few feet from the celluloid
works, came tumbling down upon
them.
Men wounded and frenzied, with
clothes burned off and bodies
scorched black, ran out upon the
road to New Brunswick, two miles
away.
A hundred soldires hastily mobil-
lied by Major A. S. Casad at the
Raritan arsenal, were speeded by
automobile to the place of the eX-
plosion almost before the echoes had
died away. Accompanied by the
arsenaPs ambulances and hospital
corps, they were the first to attack
the flames and start rescue work.
Later, it was discovered that four
of the arsenal high explosives mag
aZines had been crushed by the eX-
plosion and the roofs of two others
blown in. Fourteen companies Of
firemen helped check the flames,
which for a time threatened to
spread to the arsenal's scores of
powder warehouses.
Acid Tanks Burst
Doctors and nurses from hospitals
in nearby cities were early on the
scene. Numerous heroic rescues
were recorded, nurses and soldiers
working side by side amid the smoke
N.and dense yellow fumes which all
7 day rolled up from the ruins as tank
after tank of nitric acid and am
monia burst.
An hour after the explosion the
village of Nixon and the twenty
acres or more of buildings which had
housed the explosive works looked
like a sector of battle front-no
mans land. Only a fe wfragments
of wall remained standing.
For two miles the narrow road
leading from the main highway was
lined with automobiles hub deep in
mud, past which rushed fire APP
paratus, ambulances. hearses, police
and army cars, and people running
and crying. Stretcher bearers car
ried the dead and injured through
cars of relatives of victims who be-
sieged the gates of the plant. Tele-
phones were being installed on ev-
+. cry standing pole to replace the
lines of communication that had
been swept away by the explosion.
Airplanes with photographers circled
overhead.
Those uninjured who had seen the
explosion We're unable to tell what
caused it. Those who were in it and
survived were unable to talk.
1t was said the int was part of
two million pounds that had been
purchased from the government s
Raritan arsenal by the Columbia
Salvage corporation and removed
from big shells at the arsenal mag
azines. The powder had been turn
ed over to the Ammonite company
ut Nixon. whose employees were TIE
first victims of the blast.
Mystery Is Deepened
The mystery OF the explosion was
deepened by the declarations OF
company officials and employees
that. theoretically, INT should
burn without exploding: that, al
though 1t is a hiSh explosive, it is
"slow" one, and requires heavy
decorating cap TO set it Off
The only explanation advanced
was >hat friction, a short circuited
electric wire or foreign substance
in one of the tanks fired some of
the INT, when it was confined
causing it to explode and act as a
detonator for all the explosive ia
the works
Although the fire was considered
under control tonight, additional
men and apparatus were summoned
with reinforcements Of the state DO
lice. TO guard against a possible
spread of the flames to the alcohol
storage tanks and the few ruined
buildings where stocks of sheet eel