CINEMA DISASTER

Hokitika Guardian, 11 January 1927, Page 2

CINEMA DISASTER

HEAVY DEATH ROLL. [Australia & N.Z. Cable Association.] ' MONTREAL, dan. 9. The death roll by the fire at the Laurier picture house is 70. and peiliaps more. The fatalities were practically the result of a frenzied rush by the audience when the fire was discovered. Alost of the dead children were found to have* been crushed or .suffocated in the stampede. Tho Theatre was filled with eleven hundred persons, mostly juveniles. Little damage was done by the flames, which wore quickly extinguished by firemen. MONTREAL. Jan. 9. The boys and girls who were in the vi.m of the stampeding mobs from the balcony were pressed'on suddenly from tho rear. This caused them to stumble and fall. In an instant, patiie seized those in the rear, and there was a shoving and scrambling. Then boys and girls were piled in a heap n,ul a minute or two proved sufficient for the stairway to become a solid, suffocating, groaning, shrieking and dying mass. Firemen and police wore instantly on tho spot, and many of the children were rescued trom the jam. Holes were cut through the wooden stairs directly under the jam of the Imdics, and another hole was cut in the v*:dl. Nearly all of those pulled out from the stairway were dead.

SURVIVOR’S STORY. OTTAWA, Jan. 10. A ten-vear-old survivor related bis experience as follows; “1 was standing in the gallery while a funny picture was being shown. Everyone was laughing. Suddenly T heard someone yell “Fil'd” Then the people began to scream. All started rushing downstairs. Everyone piled on top of each otilier. I climbed over and a boy grasped my foot and tried to pull himself from the others. I struggled and my shoe came oil.” The number of deaths at this fire makes it the greatest tragedy of its kind in Canada’s history. DEATH ROLL MOUNTS UP. MONTREAL, Jan. 9. Tho number of dead in the cinema fire lias increased to 77. The stairway from the theatre balcony was a death trap. It was here that the children were jammed and crushed at a turning. The firemen cut a hole in the street wall to get at the bodies. All the dead were victims of the stampede, and merely ten minutes encompassed the whole tragedy. MONTREAL. Jan. 10. It. was a slight tire, due probably to crossed wires, in the Laurier Cinema Theatre which caused the stampede. There were runty-six lives lost. The victims mostly were French Canadian children, under sixteen years of age.

The actual fire was negligible. The deaths were due Mainly to trampling, coupled vrith asphyxiation and smoke. Tho victims struggl'd to escape through a, narrow stairway. Scenes of terror were witnessed as the parents battled with the police and firemen to enter the theatre.

Seventy-three of the dc-ad have been identified.

Women and children were lodged so tightly at the foot of the stairway that the firemen were, forced to break a. bole in the wall to relieve the pressure. Then they bad to iorm a “Inimpchain” to ]i»ss out the victims. One of the children was so firmly wedged that twenty men were unable to extricate him from the mass of bodies.

A priest hurried to the scene and administered the last rites to the sufferers.

All the available doctors assisted in treating victims, many of whom were mangled beyond recognition. Scenes were enacted at the morgue, where grief-crazed parents were seeking for their offspring, not knowing whether they were dead or alive.