A Terrible Disaster

Feilding Star, Volume VII, Issue 26, 11 August 1885, Page 3

A Terrible Disaster

MANY PERSONS KILLED AND

INJURED.

A.t Thiers, a town ia the Department of Puy-de-Dome, France, a murder trial has bee» in progress for some days. Yesterday, the last day of the trial, the courthouse was crowded with men and women

anxious to witness the closing scen«s. When the people «rere leaving, immediately after the adjournment of the Court, and were jammed upon the stone stairway leading to the street, the lofty staircase fell. The scene which followed was appalling. Immense masses of masonry from above crashed down upon the struggling peeple b*low, grinding through their flesh and bones, and xnaimin g them in a horrible manner. The fall of the staircase and screams of the people lying helpless in the ruins caused a panic in the courtroom, and there was a rush for the now wrecked exit.: Those who were in front were unable to withstand the pressure from behind, and were hurled down upon the men- and women who were crushed in the fall of the staircase, and whom the people on the street were already striving to rescue. When at leagih the panic had exhausted itself "and the- massive stone steps of the fallen •taircase had been removed, twenty persons were taken from the ruias dead. The injured numbered not less than sixty, and many of them will die. [Later dispatches from Thiers makes the courthouse calamity there,,, yesterday far more disastrous in its consequences than the earlier dispatches indicated. The dead already -number twenty- four. The total number of injured is now placed at 163 Of these fourteen are very seriously injured and some will die.]