OCR Text |
Show BLEW UPTHE Si FRENCH BATTLESHIP DESTROYED DESTROY-ED BY EXPLOSION OF MAGAZINES MAGA-ZINES IN TOULON HARBOR. Three Other Warships Are Badly Damaged, Over 350 Men Meeting Death aa Reiult of Accident Almost Al-most Without Precedent. Toulon, France. More than 3f.O officers of-ficers and men of the French battle ahlp Llberte lout their Uvea Monday when the ship waa torn apart and totally to-tally deatroyed In the harbor here, by an explosion of her magazines. The battleship Republtque waa badly damaged, and the bnttleahlpa Democratic Demo-cratic and Verlte Buffered heavily from the masHes of twlaled Iron and armor plate hurled upon their decks. This la the greatest disaster that has ever befallen the French navy, and In magnitude la almoBt without precedent In the annala of the world'a fighting ahlpa. The explosion occurred at 6:53 o'clock In the morning. It waa the result of an outbreak of Are. The flamea apread rapidly In aplte of all effort to oxtlngulsh them, and reached the magassines before there waa time to flood them. The maga-tinea maga-tinea exploded with tremendous violence, vio-lence, aowlng death and destruction In every direction. Whllo the naval authorltlea estimate esti-mate the killed at 300, It la feared thla figure will be exceeded. It will he necessary to go through the ship's muster rolls, a tak of days, before a full list of the victims can bo prepared. pre-pared. Exactly from what cnuse or when the fire broke out has not been ascertained, ascer-tained, but It Is believed It had been smouldering for hours. Of the vessel's ves-sel's full complement of 742 men, Captain Juares, brother of the Social-lit Social-lit leader, and the second officer In command, were both ashore on leave, aa also were HO of the officers and men. The command of the ahlp de-rolved de-rolved on the senior lieutenant, who perished. |