DISASTROUS EXPLOSION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 317, 16 January 1908, Page 2

DISASTROUS EXPLOSION.

FIRE AND PANIC IN A THEATRE. EIGHTY KILLED ; HUNDRED INJURED. ; New York, January 14. As the result of a fire, caused by the explosion of a cinematograph at Rhodes' Opera House, Boyerton, Pennsylvania, 80 persons were killed and 100 injured. The explosion caused o panic in the audience. Seven hundred were present, chiefly women and Sunday scholars. They rushed the stage and overturned saversl tamps, which set | file to the scenery. Part of the floor collapsed, precipitating scores into the basement. Within five minutes the theatre was a roaring furnace. The -staircases were choked by the crowd. Many, mounting oh piles of bodies several feet high, jumped from the windows. The fire apparatus was. out of order.

LATER PARTICULARS. FRENZIED PEOPLE. WOMEN AND CHTLDREN TRAMPLED ' DOWN. 167 BODIES RECOVERED. " Received Jan. 10; 0.4) a.m. New York, January 15. The majority of the victims belonged to the niost prominent families of Boyertown, their children participating in the play, which was entitled "The Scottish Reformation."

fl'lie Coroner is of opinion that' tho enhance to the theatre was too narrow. Oil lamps were vsecj as footlights. A child on the stage overturned a lamp. A nunlber of people present became frenzied as the flames, startiug on

'the stage, approached them, men beating down women and children in their efforts to escape. . Many of the parents sacrificed their lives in endeavoring'to save their children.

Several rescuers, dashing into the building, did not return. One hundred and sixty-seven bodies have been recovered. This is believed to l>e the total.

The inquiry into the fire shows that the pipe connecting thc/dajcium light with the hydrogen tank behind the audience slipped off. The connection made a hissing sound, causing the panic. The tank did not explode until the flames reached it.