COLLAPSE OF A BUILDING.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2515, 13 June 1893, Page 1

COLLAPSE OF A BUILDING.

Washington, June 9. Ford’s Theatre in this city, now used as offices by the Pension Department, collapsed. A thousand people were employed in the building, and so far few have been found alive. Jt is stated that two hundred were buried in the ruins of the Pension Department. Three hundred were in the building when it collapsed, but a portion of the floor remained intact, thus enabling many to escape, while others jumped from the windows. The number of killed is eafimated to be under fifty. The building had been condemned as but was preserved from reasons of sentiment, it being the scene of the murder of President Lincoln by Wilkes Booth, in April, 1865. June H, The cries of those buried in tb<* , lapse of the old Ford’s T* - , " c e mi .1 .icatre were most appalling. 111. „ irße floors fell in rapid and the dead were horlimy ialatec j. The cavalry, who were early on the scene, were successful in extricating numbers of those in the building. The collapse is attributed to the underworks having been removed for the purpose of the installation of electricity. A hundred of the occupants of the upper floors saved themselves by jumping on to an adjoining roof.