The New York Times/1916/11/22/Archangel Explosion Killed 341; Hurt 667
ARCHANGEL EXPLOSION KILLED 341; HURT 667
Large Number of Victims Explained by Fact That Blowup Occurred at Dinner Hour.
PETROGRAD, Nov. 21, (via London.)—It is announced officially that 341 persons have been killed and 667 wounded by an explosion at Bakaritza. The statement follows:
“According to supplementary information, the number of persons killed by the explosion at Bakaritza was found, after clearing the debris of masonry, to be 341, while the number of persons injured, according to reports received from hospitals, amounts to 49 officers and officials, 437 soldiers, 131 civilians, and 25 women. Of the crews of British merchant ships, 27 were killed and 25 injured.
“The large number of victims is explained by the fact that the explosion occurred during the dinner hour, when the men were resting in huts wrecked by the explosion.”
LONDON, Nov. 21.—A Reuter's dispatch from Petrograd says it is authoritatively announced that only two vessels were destroyed in the recent explosion in the harbor of Bakaritza, near Archangel. These were the British steamer Baron Driesen and the British coal steamer Earl of Forfar, moored beside the Baron Driesen. Russian authorities make a categorical denial of the German report that seven munition-laden ships were destroyed, and the Russian Admiralty declares that the German report, attributing the first explosion on board the Baron Driesen to a submarine, is absurd, adding that German submarines cannot possibly penetrate to Bakaritza harbor.
BERLIN, Nov. 21, (by Wireless to Sayville.)—Reports received from Swedish sources say that at least twenty steamers caught fire in the recent series of explosions near Archangel and were forced to stay in the harbor until it was ice-bound, says the Overseas News Agency. According to these reports it is estimated that ammunition valued at 80,000,000 rubles, ($40,000,000;) 20,000 bales of cotton belonging to the Moscow Association of Cotton Mills, and 15,000,000 rubles, ($7,500,000,) worth of rubber were burned. A new automobile train, for Petrograd and Moscow, is reported to have been partly destroyed.