Some more details of the crowds who visited the scene of the explosion.
Extracts from the Times.
Yesterday thousands upon thousands of people visited the scene of the catastrophe, travelling mostly by the North Kent Railway: and it required the aid of a strong body of police at the Erith and Belvedere Stations to maintain order, and prevent accident. From an early hour in the morning until dark long trains came In from the London-bridge Station crammed, while the frequent trains from Maidstone, Stood, Chatham, Rochester, Gravesend, Dartford, and other places on the North Kent line deposited their thousands at the Erith Station. Long after dark the platform and grounds of the Belvedere and Erith Stations were crowded with thousands of people waiting to be conveyed homewards. At eleven o'clock the trains were coming In rapidly to London-bridge, the passengers by which reported that a large number of persons were still waiting down the line.
Another death, indirectly attributable to the catastrophe, occurred on Sunday night at the Erith station of the North Kent Railway. A young Italian, named Luigl Lorandi, or Morandi, in attempting to enter a carriage in a general rush which was made for places on the arrival of an up-traln, was dragged among the wheels, and sustained mortal Injuries. He had received a compound fracture of the right thigh, just above the knee joint, and the whole of the leg below was much lacerated and contused. He died three-quarters of an hour after his admission to the hospital. His own account was that he was pushed under a carriage while the train was starting, and that the wheels went over his leg. He was a young man of gentlemanly appearance.
For hours on Sunday night fearful scene of tumult and violence occurred at the Erith and Belvedere Stations on the North Kent Railway. Throughout the whole day thousands of people went by the line from London and the Intermediate stations to the scene of the catastrophe, and a great number of them lingered there until dark. The result was, that until far towards midnight they congregated in dense masses on the station platforms at Erith and Belvedere, and besieged every train that stopped to take up passengers on the up journey. The railway authorities at the London-bridge Station despatched extra trains one after another as fast as they could do so with safety, to bring up the people, but in spite of that there was great delay, and the last up-train did not leave the Belvedere Station until three o'clock yesterday morning. At intervals during the whole evening, whenever a train stopped, either there or at Erith, a frightful rush was made at it, and the people crowded the carriages almost to suffocation, in spite of the efforts of the police and the railway company's servants to restrain them. Many clambered upon the tops of the carriages, others took possession of the engine tender, and some even bestrode the buffers until they were pulled off by main force by the police. At Woolwich Arsenal Station several of the trains were stopped, and people who were suffering from the overcrowding taken out of them.