Cause of Ship Blast Is Studied Associated Press
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'Y T h e P 1 " S r : . j r n o i r e ' VOL. XXII, NO.124________________________________ FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 1989 THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING NOTRE DAME AND SAINT MARY’S Cause of ship blast is studied Associated Press WASHINGTON- Red-hot debris may have ignited the blast that killed 47 sailors on the USS Iowa, Navy officers said Thursday. The bodies of the deceased were flown home and families of the battles hip’s 1,600 crewmen learned if their relatives were among the dead. No eyewitnesses survived Wednes day’s explosion in one of two forward 16-inch gun turrets on the Iowa, one of the largest warships ever to sail the seas. The Navy organized a board of in quiry and placed a moratorium on firing 16 inch guns, found only on the Iowa and its three sister battleships, the New Jersey, the Wisconsin and the M issouri. Pentagon officials declined to spec ulate publicly about the exact cause of the disaster, the worst to strike a Navy ship since 1977, but officers said the AP Photos “logical explanation” was that red-hot TOP: The battleship USS Iowa under way Wednesday after a in the second of the ship’s two forward turrets. LEFT: A Navy debris from a previous round ignited gun turret packed with gunpowder exploded, killing at least 47 crewman aboard the battleship USS Iowa posed in 1984 next to new charges as they were loaded into sailors during exercises about 330 miles northeast of Puerto Rico. the breech of one of the 16 inch gun’s turret. RIGHT: A crewman The ship is expected to arrive at Roosevelt Roads Navy base in posed with bags of gunpowder for the big guns. A bag like the see IOWA / page 6 Puerto Rico Thursday morning. The explosion and fire took place ones shown is thought to be the cause of the explosion. Prof. Danehy back after illness Babbitt addresses By JOHN ZALLER wheel of his car on Septem involved in the community Staff Reporter b er 14, 1988, afte r his h e a rt in the past. geology convention stopped. He then underwent He contributed as a volun Professor Emeritus eight weeks of hospital care teer in many areas around By RON SEVERING James Danehy is back at and has been away from his the city along with a weekly Staff Reporter work after his heart stopped office for seven months. radio show on WSND. for almost six minutes last The 1933 N otre D am e “Hopefully, some day I’ll Bruce Babbitt, former gover Septem ber graduate has lessened his get back to those things,” nor of Arizona, said in an ad “I’m in good health and work load and is increasing said Danehy. dress hosted by the Notre gradually getting my his strength and health dai Danehy said he did not ex Dame Department of Earth strength back,” said ly. Each day he walks “al perience any type of out of Sciences that America is drift D anehy, who will tu rn 77 most two miles as fast as I body experience that is often ing into a state of complacency next week. c a n .” thought to occur during the and is in need of some purpose Danehy collapsed at the Danehy has been actively first stages of death. or direction. The address, held Thursday in the Monogram Room of the Joyce Athletic and Convocation Bruce Babbitt Chinese protest continues Center, was part of the 23rd An nual Meeting of the North- Babbitt stated there are come necessary,” the announ according to the law.” Central Section of the Geologi three issues America must ad Associated Press cer said, quoting from an edi Early Thursday, thousands cal Society of America. dress before it achieves a torial by the official Xinhua of security forces rushed into “sense of purpose or direc B EIJIN G - About 1,500 stu News Agency. crowds of students as they ■ Geology meeting / page 4 tio n .” dents braved a daylong “These protesters do not protested near the The first of these issues is et downpour and marched for really care about the future or headquarters of the ruling Babbitt earned a degree in hics, according to Babbitt. He democracy in the capital happiness of China, all they Communist Party. geology from Notre Dame in cited former Sen. John Tower Thursday, and authorities want to do is overthrow the Student organizers said se 1960 and a m asters degree in and House Speaker Jim Wright threatened harsh measures to Communist Party and the gov curity forces beat more than paleomagnetism from the Uni as examples of the need to in crush four days of dissent. ernment,” the editorial said. 200 students, injuring about 40. versity of Durham, England. still a new code of ethics in gov About 1,000 students The protests were prompted B etw een 40 and 50 w ere a r He then decided to change his ern m en t. marched in the central Chinese by the death Saturday of Hu rested, they said. career goal to public service The second issue is social city of Nanjing, and students in Yaobang, an outspoken There was no official report and graduated from Harvard progress, said Babbitt. “We Tianjin, a port city east of reformer who was ousted as on the arrests or injuries, but Law School before going to have a responsibility to try new Beijing, plastered posters on Communist Party chief in 1987. Associated Press reporters work in the government of his social programs, even though walls. Other marches were re Hu w as accused of encouraging witnessed several beatings and home state, Arizona. some programs are bound to ported in Shanghai, Wuhan and liberal ideas and failing to detainments. Although Babbitt spoke on fail,” said Babbitt. Hefei, but details were sketchy. crack down on the 1986-87 stu Thursday afternoon, stu his current vocation of govern Babbitt concluded his ad Nationally televised news led dent demonstrators. dents from several universities ment, he said, “I still look back dress saying the third problem with a stern warning that the The Beijing city government m arch ed for hours under heavy fondly on my days as a America must face is the “war protests, the biggest since the issued ‘ regulations that rain to Tiananmen Square, the geologist.” between the demands of the pro democracy demonstra restricted commemoration ac symbolic center of Chinese po Babbitt was in the running present and the needs of the fu tions of 1986-87, would no longer tivities for Hu to inside univer litical life. for the Democratic nomination ture.” He said the national debt be tolerated. sities, businesses and fac In the evening, they rallied in last year’s presidential race. shows that leaders of today are “These activities have gone tories. around the huge obelisk com “We’re now seeing the effects in a “spend today” frame of beyond the limits of the law and The regulations also said memorating China’s revolu- of a campaign that never mind. “We must invest in the the taking of harsh measures “rioters and other Jawbreakers caught the eye of the American future in the form of educa to end the disturbances has be would be dealt with severely, se e PROTEST / page 6 public.” tion,” Babbitt suggested. page 2 The Observer Friday, April 21, 1989 WORLD BRIEFS Hit or ‘near miss’: Afghan guerrillas fired a rocket into the Soviet Embassy in Kabul on Thursday, shattering windows of an administration building but causing no casualties. Soviet diplomats said the something to consider rocket was fired from about 20 miles northwest of the capital. The United States closed its embassy in Kabul before Soviet troops completed their withdrawal Feb. 15. Since then, Moslem Just when you thought we had enough on this tiny planet to worry about, something cosmic insurgents have attacked Kabul intermittently but have concen A n errant rock from trated their attack on the eastern city of Jalalabad. happens. An asteroid large enough to wipe out New outer space. It’s the York City and part of Long Island passed as kind of thing you’d NATIONAL BRIEFS close to Earth on March 23 as any in more than expect to read in a a century, the Wall Street Journal reported yes supermarket tabloid.’ An asteroid big enough to wipe out cities whizzed terday. past the Earth last month before astronomers even knew it was The Journal learned of this “near miss” from there, showing how hard it is to forecast a natural disaster from NASA, which was tipped off by astrogeologist Regis Coccia space, a NASA scientist said Thursday. The mountain-sized as Henry Holt at Northern Arizona University. Managing Editor teroid flashed by the Earth at a speed of 46,000 miles an hour How near is near? In this case, the asteroid and was not even detected until days after it had become a passed w ithin 450,000 m iles of E arth , about receding point of light, NASA announced. Astronomers reported twice the distance to the moon. That’s a long The specter of a relatively small object from that the object missed the Earth by a half million miles- about way by terrestrial standards, but cosmically it space causing such tremendous damage is twice the distance between the Earth and moon. In cosmic terms, was a close call. frightening, compounded by the fact that as this is considered “a close call.” Had it hit the Earth, said Bevan It’s nice to know NASA is keeping an eye on ter oiffs have no set agenda.