3-039-038 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Explosion of a cartridge factory at Dunkirk, [France], 1871. Engraving showing 'The disaster which happened on Tuesday, the 7th February, by the explosion of gunpowder in a temporary factory of cartridges for the use of the French troops during the [Franco-Prussian] war. The building in which this dangerous manufacture had been established was the Casino, the hall for promenades, concerts, and entertainments, which in ordinary times and in the season of sea-bathing has usually been frequented by visitors...we are assured that not a few English families have chosen their summer holiday retreat in this quiet place. The cause of the explosion is not known, but its effects were terrific. About 200 persons, women or girls, were at work in the building...not more than sixty of them escaped without some kind of injury, either from the flames or the falling ruins. Thirty dead bodies were recovered, and were buried with a public funeral. As many more are reckoned among the dead...several of our own countrymen were among the most active in their exertions to save the living victims of this deplorable accident, rendering all the aid they could to the men who laboured in removing the masses of rubbish, still burning, to get out those who lay beneath'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.