BIG FIRE IN BRUSSELS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 109, 16 August 1910, Page 5

BIG FIRE IN BRUSSELS

EXHIBITION BUILDINGS DESTROYED. IRREPARABLE DAMAGE. PRICELESS' EXHIBITS BURNT. LOSS OF LIFE AND PROPERTY. By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright Received August 15, 10.51 p.m. Brussels, August 15.

A fire, attributed to. fireworks or a short circuit in an electric wire, began at 9 o'clock to-night in the Belgian section of the facade on the eastern side of the Exhibition.

The flames spread with extraordinary rapidity, the wax mannequins of the Brussels dressmakers aiding the conflagration.

Soon there was an unbroken sheet of flame, which thence spread to the British section, both sections being consumed in fifty minutes, the loss including Grinling Gibbons' carvings, Mortaix tapestries, priceless furniture and a Bradford tableau, showing the worsted industry.

Only documents 1 were saved before the cry, "Save your lives!" was raised.

| The wind caused sparks to scatter i everywhere. | The French, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Spanish, Austrian, Japanese and Chinese sections were involved.' The whole of the left side of the Avenue des Notions, also forty houses in the Avenue Solebusch, adjoining the Exhibition, were destroved.

Military sappers finally blew up the buildings with melinite. The Machinery Hall is still threatened. Numerous thefts are reported.

1 'An apache stabbed a soldier, who was arresting him. Fortunately the public were excluded jfrom the 'building after 6 o'clock. The grounds were filled with enormous crowd® watching the fireworks. The worst panic was in the section of

the grounds showing the productions of old Brussels, where hurrying crowds were bewildered in a maze of old streets. These were destroyed'. It is reposed that two were killed and thirty injured. The animals of Bostock's Menagerie escaped, and were afterwards shot.