Warm Weather Causes Spontaneous Combustion in Gunpowder Dump: Half a Dozen Killed and Many Others Injured 'Alarm prevailed three minutes ter. oan, on June 3 as the result series of explosions coming] Brom the direction of the Kiangnan 'Arsenal, Kaochangmiao, Rumours quickly spread to the effect that the Reorganizationists' agents were attacking the Arsenal and that the Communists were trying to blow it up. Strict. precautions adopted. by the local, military authorities, how fever, quickly put an end to this alarm, A representative of the "North-China Daily News" paid a visit to the scene "of the explosion and! interviewed one of the workers, well as the Director Inv. Kwong. More than 50 persons were killed or wounded, 'The scene of the disaster was one} of real desolation and only' the foundations of the wall of a brick Dduilding, 80 ft. by 40 ft, used asa fuse and gunpowder dump and in connection with the manufacture of heavy gunshot and trench mortar! ammunition, remained standing, Bricks of the walls had been known far away as 50 ft. The tops of surrounding, trees thad been singed, the roof had been blown off and the beams Jay a dozen feet away from the building itself, The walls of three neighbouring" godowns, 26 ft, away, wore badly" marked—with pieces of flying shrapnel. Pieces of corrugated iron lay about 6. ft, away.
According to Mr. Kwong, in such weather, as the present, the heat had a very bad effect on gunpowder, and, inthe ease of thin plosion, the heat vas the cause, Tt had resulted in spontaneous. com-Dustion which, in turn, had caused the explosions, The workers were engaged as! usual in the morning in filling the shells used in heavy guns and trench mortars with gun: powder. They were in a special }ouilding facing the Whangpoo and which was practically surrounded by trees and godowns. In all, jabour 30 men were engaged in rushing work through for the Ministry Jof War and, of these, half-a-dozen were extra hands who, though men of experience in their own respective ines, were not so accustomed to the i work on which they were engaged as the others. All the work done there was by hand. Special passes had to be obtained before anybody could go inside or even near the building, These men were working when the first explosion took place, followed almost immediately afterwards by a series of others, shells flying in all directions, rumbling. The explosion might have been much worse and {t doubt-Jess would have been had not some 4,000 shells been left without fuses Panic ensued as soon as the first] explosion was heard but the workers ware not quick enough in escaping! and they were caught in a trap. Half a dozen men are dead, nine, are seriously injured and mainder are suffering from slight} wounds. Sze Chang-fa, a supervisor, likewise was seriously injured, After the last explosion, rescue] workers rushed to the scene and removed the dead and wounded from the debris, The dead were placed under a godown shelter and the wounded were taken to the Shanghai! City Hospital and the Lester Chinese Hospital,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.