EIGHT PERSONS BURNT TO DEATH.

Thames Star, Issue 3342, 8 September 1879, Page 2

EIGHT PERSONS BURNT TO DEATH.

One Man Silled, and several

Badly Injured.

Fire Still Baffin?.

(Pee Pibbs Agency.)

DUNEDIN.

This day.

A fire broke out early this morning in Walters' Cafe* in the Octagon, and the block is in flumes. The fire is still raging. Eight people, hare lost their lives who were unable to escape. Later. 11.15 a.m. One of the most terrible calamities] which ever occurred in Dunedin hap- i pened this morning in the Octagon, when Wallers' Cafe* took fir© about 2.30. Next, to the Cafe* was the shop of Mrs Wilson/! wife of the Editor- of tho Witness. I The four shops and buildings were all thickly peopled, and, as. the whole of the lower part was in flames before the fact was discovered, escape was impossible for the majority. It is known that Wilson's family, numbering ten persons, are all lost excepting two, one of whom jumped out of a window, and it is , feared is injured beyond recovery. From . the statement made by a person who escaped by lowering himself with a clothes' line it would appear that a number of the persons were lying in the passage through which he had to grope, apparently suffocated. The few persons who escaped are badly cut and injured. One man who leaped from the window to the pavement wits killed.

The whole of the block of buildings is gutted, but as the fire is still raging the excitement is intense, and it is impossible to ascertain anything with accuracy.