OCR Text |
Show FRENCH CAPTAIN BLAMESTHE IMO HALIFAX, N. S., Dec. 11. A description de-scription of what took place on the j French steamship Mont Blanc is contained con-tained in a statement issued here today by the master of the vessel, Captain Lamedoc. The master places th'e blame for the collision on the Norwegian Belgian relief ship Imo. "We had on board nearly 5000 tons of freight, mostly explosives," Captain Lamedoc said. "The ballast tanks were filled with water. In the forward was stored picric acid; then came a steel bulkhead and in the next hold was T.N.T., a high explosive. We also had T.N.T. in the third hold. On top of the forward deck were stored about twenty barrels of benzol over the picric pic-ric acid with a steel deck In between. Was Clear Morning. "It was a clear morning. The water was smooth and we were at halt speed on the starboard side toward the Bedford Bed-ford basin. There were no vessels in our course until we sighted the Belgian relief ship Imo coming out of Bedford and headed for the Dartmouth shore. She was more than two miles away at the time." The captain said that the Imo dis- regarded his signals and that when he saw a collision was inevitable he held the Mont Blanc so she would be struck at the forward hold where the picric acid was, a substance which would not explode. Saw No Hope. "The Imo cut into us about a third through the deck and hold," he added, "and the benzol poured into the picric acid, Igniting it and causing a cloud of smoke to arise from the vessel forward. for-ward. I saw there was no hope of doing anything more and knew that an explosion was inevitable, so the boats were lowered and all hands got aboard them and rowed for the Dartmouth Dart-mouth shore "In all, there were forty-one men aboard the Mont Blanc. The picric acid was in flames but it did not explode. Meanwhile the Imo had backed away toward the Dartmouth shore. We landed and ran into the woods. About twenty minutes after we left the ship we heard the explosion. explo-sion. It knocked nearly every one of us down and we were struck by bits of the trees and other things, but only the gunner was seriously injured. He has died." rn |