A DISASTER AT PITTSBURG. COLLAPSE OF A SEVEN-STOREY BUILDING—LOSS OF LIFE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 341, 9 February 1889, Page 3

A DISASTER AT PITTSBURG. COLLAPSE OF A SEVEN-STOREY BUILDING— LOSS OF LIFE.

Pittsbukg, January 9. — A terrific storm of wind and hail, the worst known for years, swept over this city shortly after nooa today, carrying with ib death and destruction. The storm formed with a suddenness that was overwhelming, and as the wind, accompanied by hail and torrents of rain, swept along the streets pedestrians were hurled be f oro it and barely escaped being crushed, under vehicles passing along the thoioughfare. Suddenly in the centre of the city, there was a terrible crash and a few minutes later the central fire alarm sounded a call from the box on the corner of Diamond and Wood Streets. Hundreds of people hurried to the scene, when ib was found that the cyclone had caught a new building on Dia-mond-street, owoed by C. L. Willey, and hurled it to earth, covering up two scores of human bodies. The building was in course of erection, Ib was forty by eighty feeb in dimensions, and was seven sboreys high. Tho front ot the building had not yet been put in, and the wind seemed to enter from the open end. The high walls of brick and undried mortar were parted, one facing each way, partly wrecking nearly a dozen surrounding buildings. The main force of the crushing building .was thrown against Weldin and Co. 'a book store on Wood-street and the barber shop of Fred Schumaker at 41, Wood -street. The rear end of Weldin's store was crushed in and the front of the building was forced out into Wood-street. The barber shop was completely demolished. A leather store, next to the Milley building, occupied by W. H. Thomas, was also totally wrecked. The rejir end of H. Watt and Co. 's book store was "crushed in, while some of the falling structure struck J. Richbaum's building, fronting on First Avenue, breaking windows and injuring a number of employees. A portion of the wall of the millinery store next to Thomas's was caved in, and windows and doors in a number of surrounding buildings were broken. The building of Rea Brothers and Co., stock- brokers, on the corner of Diamond and' r Wood - streets, was partly wrecked, and the occupants barely escaped. At the time of the disaster about twentyfive men were ab work on the building, and not one escaped injurj\ In the barber shop, next door, soven men were imprisoned, while half a dozen were buried beneath the debr-rs-of the -Weldin building. The -cyclone wrought terrible ,destrue j tion in otheY^parts of the city and out ' along^the riani?oads centering -here.