CINEMA HOLOCAUST

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 291, 29 February 1928, Page 1

CINEMA HOLOCAUST

maddened crowd STAMPEDES trapped in burning barn ?y Cable. —Press Association. — Copyright. ROME, Tuesday. A fir* in a cinema last evening at Mor ago, • village near Venice, resulted in a shocking disaster. The number of deaths has not yet been ascertained, but it is believed to be considerable. So far 40 bodies have been recovered. The dead include many children. A film was being screened on the rst floor of ar old granary constructed t wood. There were 300 spectators, he film caught fire and the operator’s rooden cabin was quickly in a blaze. The hall was filled with smoke. Men. vonten and children rushed to the mgle wooden staircase, which coined. The proprietor, Signor Podesta, ainly tried to calm the maddened rowd. Owing to the panic and the ollapsed stairway, many people were urned to death, asphyxiated or fatally rushed. Ia the meanwhile there were terrible cenes in the village. Mothers rushed o see if their children were safe but ould not approach the burning buildig. Moriago has no fire brigade, and vhen the firemen arrived from Trevsco, the capital of the province, the milding had been reduced to a mass of inders. Signor Podesta and his wife scaped by jumping from a window.— L and N.Z.