2-888-150 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Explosion of the Laboratory, at Rendsburg, [Schleswig-Holstein, Germany], 1850. Explosion '...in the laboratory, in which the ammunition, shells, shrapnels, &c. are prepared...The ammunition is always removed, as it is prepared, to the more distant magazines, which are of course fire and shell-proof; and, at the time of the accident, there was no greater quantity of explosive matter in the building than the men were engaged on for the day, otherwise the catastrophe would have been frightful...The [building] unfortunately used as the school for the cadets was in the island and immediately joining the Laboratory, an arrangement rather convenient than safe, and to it the killing and maiming 30 of the cadets is to be attributed...On the island not one stone of any of the buildings is left on another - whole blocks of masonry have been wrenched from the foundations and blown in all directions...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.