Cabo Machichaco
 The burning Cabo Machichaco in the port of Santander
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The Cabo Machichaco (ex Benisaf ) was a cargo ship built in 1882. Originally used as a coal transporter, it was converted into a general cargo ship in 1885 after it was sold to the Seville company Ybarra y Co. and renamed Cabo Machichaco . The ship went on a liner service from Bilbao to Santander ; its last trip to Santander on October 24, 1893 lasted six hours. Due to a cholera epidemic in Bilbao, the Cabo Machichaco was quarantined and it was only able to dock in the center of the city on November 3rd. The ship caught fire while unloading - 43 tons of explosives on board caused a huge explosion. The cargo, consisting of several hundred tons of iron bars, bars and other objects in addition to the explosives , flew up to five kilometers and killed 590 people. The pressure wave caused an earthquake, which was recorded eight kilometers away. It was the greatest civil catastrophe in Spain in the 19th century. While workers later tried to remove the explosives that were still in the ship, a second explosion occurred on March 21, 1894, killing 15 people.
Ship data
The Benisaf was built in 1882. She had a length of 78.8 meters ( length over all ), a width of 10.2 meters and a draft of 5.9 meters. The measurement was 1,689 gross register tonnes , the deadweight 2,500 tonnes deadweight . The triple expansion machine drove a propeller and was manufactured by R & W Hawthorn & Co. Ltd. delivered, the engine power was 450 horsepower (331 kilowatts ) and produced a maximum speed of 8 knots (15 km / h ). The medium-sized ship was built at the Schlesinger, Davis & Co. shipyard in Wallsend , Newcastle upon Tyne with hull number 121.
history
The first owner was the French shipowner Jules Manier from Le Havre , he used the Benisaf as a coal transporter . In 1885, Manner sold the Benisaf and three other ships to Seville's Ybarra y Co. for £ 49,500 . There the Benisaf was renamed Cabo Machichaco . It drove on the Bilbao - Santander line and transported general cargo there , as it did on its six-hour journey to Santander on October 24, 1893.
Fire and first explosion
The ship's cargo consisted of 1616 tons of general cargo, including 398 tons of iron rods, 356 tons of iron ingots, 105 tons of tin, 68 tons of iron pipes and 55 tons of other hardware such as nails and rails . There were also flour, wine and 12 tons of sulfuric acid as drugstore items . 1720 boxes of explosives ( dynamite and nitroglycerin ) with a total weight of 51,400 kilograms (including 43,000 kilograms of explosives) were also on the ship. The Cabo Machichaco usually transported a significantly smaller amount of explosives to Santander. On this trip, however, in addition to the delivery of explosives to Santander, which was only 20 boxes, also those to Seville (900 boxes) and Cartagena (800 boxes) were transported. This delivery should actually have been transported by another ship a week earlier, but its voyage was canceled. With such a cargo of explosives on board, the Cabo Machichaco should not have called at the port of Santander. Officially, however, she had only loaded 20 boxes, the remaining 1700 were "overlooked" by the port officials and not noted that it was a normal procedure to circumvent the rules.
Cabo Machichaco was quarantined for ten days because of a cholera epidemic in Bilbao . She had to anchor on the edge of the bay of Santander, near the Pedrosa hospital . On November 3, the quarantine ended and the ship docked at 7 a.m. at pier number 1, in the center of the city. The unloading of the ship, which was carried out in a great hurry, began at 8 a.m., and the quarantine meant that they were in default. On the afternoon of November 3rd, a fire broke out in the back of Cabo Machichaco . Two sailors later said they saw smoke from the aft , from the engine room . The reason for the fire could not be determined in later investigations. The crew of the transatlantic liner Alfons XIII. , which was moored near the Cabo Machichaco , helped in an attempt to stop the fire.
After about an hour, half of the fire was extinguished, but it had spread to the explosives boxes unnoticed. The explosion tore off the front half of the ship and hurled large quantities of iron and burning wood into the center of Santander. At the same time, the pressure wave created a small earthquake, which was recorded eight kilometers away. Some of the 3,000 or so spectators who had gathered on the quay and the adjacent streets to see the burning ship were swept away by the blast. However, the greatest damage was caused by flying rails, poles and pipes shooting in all directions. The nearby buildings were destroyed and many people were killed by flying parts. As a result of burning parts of the ship flying around, it started to burn in several places in the city. The ship's cargo was mainly distributed within a radius of around 700 meters around the ship; individual objects flew up to five kilometers.
Most of Santander's firefighters and police officers were killed as a result of the blast; they were near the ship because of the fire. Few of those trained to deal with disasters survived; the care of the injured and the fire fighting began slowly. The engineer Bruna was the first to organize the fire fighting. In the beginning he had only one fireman and four civilians at his disposal, but in the next few days they received reinforcements from the fire stations in Bilbao and San Sebastián . Even with this help, however, the complete burn-down of the quays could not be prevented. After the catastrophe became known, Germán Gamazo , Spain's finance minister, traveled to Santander. To take care of the injured, he requested 4,000 packages of gauze bandages and 4,000 meters of taffeta in a telegram to Madrid .
The entire teams of Cabo Machichaco and Alfons XIII. died, including the mayor of Santander. The workers involved in the deletion were also largely killed. A total of 590 people died from the explosion and the subsequent fires, about five percent of the population of Santander at the time. Around 500 people were seriously injured and another 1,500 to 2,000 were slightly injured; it was the greatest civil catastrophe in Spain in the 19th century.
Second explosion
According to maritime law at the time , the liability of the owner of the Cabo Machichaco , José María de Ybarra, was limited to the residual value of the ship and the cargo. However, he paid a higher sum to the victims and offered to remove the amount of explosives that remained in the ship. His offer met with approval from the population and the city council. The recovery of the explosives began under the supervision of representatives of the Navy and explosives experts. By February 19, 1894, most of the remaining cargo and explosives had been recovered. However, there were still between two and four tons of it on board. As the temperature had dropped to 13 degrees Celsius , the previously liquid nitroglycerin solidified, and in order to remove it in this frozen state, it would have had to be knocked off. There were different opinions in the city about how to proceed, but none of them could be agreed. By decision of the king, a commission of experts was entrusted with the decision-making; she arrived in Santander on March 5th. After examining various options, the Commission decided that the recovery should continue.
At 8 p.m. on March 21, a worker with a lamp went into the holds of the Cabo Machichaco , and at 9:10 p.m. the second explosion occurred. The until then relatively intact stern was blown away, 15 people were killed and 9 injured. Most of the port master's staff who survived the first explosion died. The population tried to storm the governor's house , the office of Ybarra and two of his ships, the Guardia Civil pushed the people back with their bayonets attached.
The remains of the ship were removed except for a small part in 1895 and 1896.
reporting
Many foreign newspapers reported on the disasters in Santander. However, due to the slow communication channels at the time, it often took a few days before the message could be read. Le Figaro reported on November 5, 1893, about the accident and the resulting destruction, but only 150 dead were named in the article, as was the case in the New Free Press . Another, more detailed article appeared in Figaro on November 9th. The Advertiser wrote of the disaster on December 13th, and the Sydney Morning Herald on December 15th . A month and a half after the disaster, the news appeared in the Brisbane Courier on December 19th. The second explosion, which occurred on March 21, 1894, was reported on April 30. The Washington Star wrote about her on March 22nd, and the New York Times reported on March 22nd, 23rd, 25th and 26th. The New York Times had not published an article about the first explosion in 1893. On August 24th, five months after the March 21st disaster, the Hawaiian Gazette published a notice of a second explosion in Santander.
Litigation
In two lawsuits insurance tried La Unión y el Fénix, the insured amount withheld because the explosions could have occurred due to carelessness of the crew. The shipping company, on the other hand, argued that “the accidents could not have been foreseen” and that “there were always ships with explosives on board in the port of Santander”. After the Spanish Navy dismissed the insurance’s action, it went to the highest Spanish court of justice, the Tribunal Supremo . The latter ruled on June 23, 1900 that the action was unfounded and instructed the insurance company to pay out the sum insured.
The historian Rafael González Echegaray (1923–1985) was born in Santander and defended the actions of the captain of the Cabo Machichaco , Facundo Léniz Maza . González Echegaray, on the other hand, criticized the port authorities for failing to observe the applicable rules. The danger posed by the ship was completely misunderstood, which was reflected in the negligent behavior of all those involved.
Monuments and memory
Two memorials were erected to commemorate the victims of the disaster. The first was created in 1896 by Santander's urban architect, Valentín R. Lavín Casalís , and is near the site of the explosions. Casalís had played an important role in fighting the fire by preventing the fire from spreading through several emergency operations. His monument consists of a massive stone cross that tapers in steps. A bronze sculpture by Cipriano Folgueras Doiztúa sits on a ledge on the pyramid-shaped base. The second monument stands at the cemetery in Ciriego, a district of Santander. It is the work of A. García Cabezas and consists of a column that stands next to a coffin on a stone slab. Every year on November 3rd, flowers are laid at the main monument by representatives of the city.
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ a b c d e f La explosión del vapor "Cabo Machichaco" in Santander. grijalvo.com, accessed September 18, 2012 (Spanish).
- ↑ BENISAF. tynebuiltships.co.uk, accessed September 17, 2012 .
- ↑ a b c d L'explosion du Cabo Machichaco. archeosousmarine.net, accessed September 18, 2012 (French).
- ↑ a b Le Figaro - Jeudi 9 November 1893 (page 1). Gallica ( Bibliothèque nationale de France ), accessed on September 26, 2012 (French).
- ↑ Le Figaro - Dimanche 5 November 1893 (page 2). Gallica ( Bibliothèque nationale de France ), accessed on September 26, 2012 (French).
- ↑ Telegrams from the Correspondence Bureau. In: Neue Freie Presse , November 5, 1893, p. 8 (online at ANNO ).
- ↑ A horrible catastrophe. trove.nla.gov.au, accessed on September 26, 2012 .
- ↑ News by the Mail. evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu, accessed September 26, 2012 .
- ↑ Apalling Catastrophe at Santander. trove.nla.gov.au, accessed on September 26, 2012 .
- ^ The Dynamite Ship at Santander. trove.nla.gov.au, accessed on September 26, 2012 .
- ^ Rioting Spaniards. (No longer available online.) Dspace.wrlc.org, formerly in the original ; accessed on September 26, 2012 (English). ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Shaking Santander Harbor. nytimes.com, accessed September 26, 2012 .
- ↑ An angry Mob at Santander. nytimes.com, accessed September 26, 2012 .
- ↑ Thirty Killed at Santander. nytimes.com, accessed September 26, 2012 .
- ^ Funeral of the Santander Victims. nytimes.com, accessed September 26, 2012 .
- ^ Another Catastrophae. evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu, accessed September 26, 2012 .
- ↑ Rafael González Echegaray: Naufragios en la Costa de Cantabria. Santander 1976. ISBN 84-241-9954-5 .
- ↑ Recordando a las víctimas del Cabo Machichaco. El Diario Montañés , accessed September 19, 2012 (Spanish).
Coordinates: 43 ° 27'31 " N , 3 ° 48'24" W.