CATASTROPHE: Inferno Afloat

At the entrance to Havana Harbor stands a grey 300-year-old fortress called Morro Castle. On the sandy beach at Asbury Park, N. J. last week lay the smoking, fire-gutted, heat-wracked cadaver of a liner named after the fortress. Between Morro Castle and Asbury Park the Morro Castle passed through a maritime horror unequalled since the Vestris went down off the Virginia Capes (TIME, Nov. 26, 1928).

Wednesday evening the twin-screw turbo-electric liner Morro Castle, 11,500 tons, lay at her Ward Line pier in Havana. In her hold...