STARTLING TRAGEDY

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10183, 8 March 1911, Page 5

STARTLING TRAGEDY

(CABLE NEWS

United Press Association —By Elec-t-ric Telegraph—Copyright.

AWFUL RESULT OF EXPLOSION't

ONE HONORED AND TWENTY LIVES LOST,

Received This Morning, 12.5 o'clock

ST. PETERSBURG, -March 7. The inhabitants of Cologne, who are chiefly railway-men and peasants, came to see cinematograph, slides dealing with the liberation of sews and tho last day of t'he carnival preceding Lent. The >show was given in a wooden building, with three doors, two of which were closed and the other barred in order that only one person might be admitted at a time. The windows 1 were also closed by shutters. An explosion of benzine. occurred, and in a few .seconds the hall was a mass of flames. Twenty-five persons, mostly men, retained their presence of mind, and escaped through a narrow passage. The rest were burnt. A party of towrisnien pluckily dashed into the building, and macie a desperate- effort to save their wives and children. Nearly all who were rescued subsequently perished by the fall of the roof, completing the holocaust. The firemen were a. long time in arriving, and their efforts u> extinguish the tiaimes were fruitless. They could only help to remove the : charred beams and boards from the corpses. Many were unrecognisable fragments, which the .peasants lifted on to sleighs by candle-light and took to the mortuary. Heart-rending scenes occurred, parents with bleeding hands digging into the smouldering ruins. Ninety corpses have been extricated. s It is believed that one hundred and twenty perished. •