The Skyland post. [volume] (West Jefferson, N.C.) 193?-1988, 1937-03-25
Building Blows Up 10 Minutes
Before Dismissal for Day i'm
Nations Worst Disaster
FEW STUDENTS ARE LEFT
Cause of Explosion Reported to Be
Gas Collecting Under Floor

Gas Collecting Under Floor
The tragic task of wrestling the
twisted bodies of 455 children and
teachers from explosion shattered
Wreckage in London, Texas, was fin
ished Friday and military board
rapidly began to trace the cause of
the nations worst school disaster.
At least three official inquiries
were started to determine the cause
of the gigantic explosion in the Lon
don consolidated school which made
of that rich oil country a vast house
of mourning.
The end of the grim recovery
work was signalized by the concise
comment of Col E. E. Parker, COM
mander of national guard forces
which held the territory under
martial law:
''The job is finished. We estimate
425 bodies were lifted from the
ruins-maybe more.
Dripping wet from pouring rain
and the perspiration of their hercu-
lean exertions, an army of oil field
workers may of them seeking their
own children or already knowing
them dead-filed out of the tangled
debris.
Explosion Thursday
Thursday afternoon, ten minutes
before the high school dismissed and
twenty minutes after the grammar
grades had been dismissed for the
day, an explosion from the ground
underneath the million-dollar Texas
school building blew the building
into fragments and teachers and
children were thrown about like rag
dolls-those who were not crushed
under falling timbers and plaster.
A parent-teacher meeting was being
held in the nearby gymnasium and
many parents rushed out to find on
ly parts of their children. A few
students jumped from the shaking
building but doctors report that
those who thus saved themselves are
suffering from broken or fractured
bones.
Identification Difficult
The task of Identification was one
of the most difficult presented by
the disaster and was the cause of
scenes of pathos.
Long lines of the bereaved moved
YEARLY through imprevised NOR
CUES, peering with fearful eyes to
pick their missing children from the
rows of sheeted bodies.
Trembling fingers plucked at
sheets to uncover mangled features
that might be those of a son, or
daughter, or brother.
Morticians from Dallas, more than
100 miles away, and from even
greater distances, hurried there to
care for the dead. One of that num-
Der, Jerome Crane Of Dallas, re-
turned there with the expressed be-
lief that at least 20 of 75'unidentifi-
ed bodies he saw at one time in an
Overton mortuary never would be
fully identified, unless parents are
able to do so from remnants Of
clothing that still remained"
Generally there were few tears.
The tragedy was still too fresh, the
magnitude of the loss, both person
al and community, too vast for i'm
mediate comprehension.
Disheveled, screaming mothers,
some of them in disagreement over
the identification Of the broken
bodies, milled about the school
grounds.
The feelings of Texas were voiced
by Gov. James V. Alfred who said
simply:
81 can conceive of nothing more
terrible than such a death for chill
dren."
Most Crushed to Death
Most of the bodies seemed to have
been crushed or torn. Few were
burned.
Two fingerprint experts were sent
from Austin on the possibility they
might assist in identifying the bod