Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 November 1893 — BLOWN INTO THE SEA. [ARTICLE]

BLOWN INTO THE SEA.

AWFUL EXPLOSION OF DYNAMITE ON A VESSEL. The Spanish Town of Santander Wrecked by the Disaster and Over 800 Persons Killed—Ship Carried Contraband Explosives—Murderer Stone Sentenced. Hundreds Are Dead. Dispatches from Santander confirm the report of the terrible disaster which wrecked the port, destroyed hundreds of lives, and sent a thrill of horror throughout the whole of Spain. The vessel which was blown up was the Cabo Machicaco. She was discharging 2,000 tons of iron and many barrels of petroleum and flour and several wine casks. Tho Captain had declared only twenty cases of dynamite, otherwise he had not been allowed to use the dock. Tho fire started at 3 o'clock in the afternoon in the coalbunkers. The customs officers and police hastened to remove the twenty cases of dynamite, which soon were landed at a safe distance from the vessel. A tug was then chartered to tow the Cabo Machicaco seaward. Meanwhile desperate efforts had been made to quench the flames. The captain and crew of the steamer Alfonzo XII. boarded the burning vessel to help fight the flames. They worked for an hour and a half without success. At the end of that time the fire reached the petroleum. Then came a series of awful explosions as the flames went from barrel to barrel of petroleum until they reached the contraband dynamite. The tug had just been moored alongside the vessel and many townspeople had gone aboard either to satisfy their curiosity or to help to extinguish the fire. Then came the explosion of the dynamite. All on board the Cabo Machicaco and many on the dock were blown to atoms. The tug vanished. The quay, with its enormous crowd of spectators, rose slowly in the air. The people were scattered in every direction, into the sea, upon the land. Firebrands fell in showers over sea and land for a radius of a mile and a half. The Cabo Machieaco’s anchor was hurled 800 yards and fell on the balcony of a house, which it completely wrecked. Houses rocked on their foundations and more than a hundrdd were set on fire by falling-firebrands. Tho destruction in the harbor was equally appalling. The launch of the steamer Alphonzo XII. was lying alongside, and contained all tho crew not aboard the Machicaco. It vanished with tho others. The survivors ashore fled shrieking, leaving the promenade adjoining the quay tt-ewn with dead and dying and mangled remnants of human bodies. Wherever the terrified fugitives turned they met only frightful destruction. Horror was added to horror in the wrecked and burning buildings, from which came piteous cries for help. Many of the fugitives were thrown down and trampled upon. Numbers are said to have lost their reason. The people were too panic-stricken to think of anything but saving their own or their relatives’ lives, and ignored their burning property. When at last a few persons with some presence of mind collected, it was at once resolved to telegraph an appeal for help to the Government and to the municipal authorities of other cities. F.very available surgeon was summoned to the scene. When night fell the sky luridly reflected the fires burning fiercely in various parts of the city. The fire went on unchecked throughout tho night. Block after block were in ruins. The people were terror-strick-en. Thousands abandoned their homes and fled to the fielda or outlying villages. Others remained to search frantically among the heaps of ruins and half-bared bodies for their lost friends or relatives

Santander was lately among the most prosperous towns in Spain, but it will* take years to repair the disaster which has overtaken it. The whole country is indignant at the criminal conduct of the captain and crew of the Cabo Machicaco, as well as the criminality of those who shipped the contraband 480 cases of dynamite, the general opinion being that tho government must take immediate steps to punish the shippers. The death of the captain and crew of tho dynamite steamer is hut poor compensation to the thousand victims. The explosion of the dynamite lifted the sea up into the air like a water spout, mingling enormous quantities of mud and stones with tho wreckage and hurling them for a great distance on every side. Reports differ as to the number killed. The most conservative estimate places the number at 500 wTiile others say that fully 1,000 have been killed and injured. The disaster is one of the most appalling that has occurred in Europe in a generation. '