OUTBREAK IN LONDON

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 214, 10 September 1928, Page 7

OUTBREAK IN LONDON

Exciting Scenes When Tenements Ignite. TIMBER YARD BLAZE. (United Service.) LONDON, September 9. One of the most disastrous fires which has occurred in London £o many years broke out at midnight at a large timber yard in Vauxhall. Within a few minutes the flames endangered six five-storey blocks of flats. Two of these speedily caught fire. The buildings were in a row of tenements which together housed 1000 people, most of whom were women, children and elderly folk. Policemen hastily aroused the occupants, who awoke to see the awesome spectacle of roaring flames sending up columns of sparks hundreds of feet into the air. The entire neighbourhood was aglow. Residents of the burning buildings rushed out in their night attire. Some of tho women carried children while their husbands carried other children and mattresses or blankets. Some of the people threw furniture out of the windows. Numbers of the flat dwellers reached the courtyard to find the 6ft gates locked. Surging to the gates they made fruitless efforts to smash them. Finally, disregarding the barbed wire which surmounted the gates the fugitives climbed up to the top of them and jumped into the street. Women passed babies over to rescuers outside. Many of the residents took refuge in neighbouring railway arches. Others huddled together in the street. There were numerous acts of bravery. One girl carried her blind mother to safety. Others stayed behind to assist invalids and two octogenarian bedridden people. In spite of the efforts of 200 firemen who had 30 fire-engines on the scenc the former could not approach within 100 yards of the fire owing to the heat. Tho timber yard was burnt out, but the flames were prevented from spreading. The glare from the fire was seen all over London. Hundreds of motorists hurried to the scene. West End sympathisers took food, which the proprietors of the neighbouring coffee-stalls distributed to the children. Two hundred people have been rendered homeless bv the outbreak.