ESCAPE FROM TOP FLOOR

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25345, 19 November 1947, Page 7

ESCAPE FROM TOP FLOOR

EXPERIENCE OF TEN GIRLS MAIN STAIRS BLOCKED BY FIRE Ten girls in the shirt work room on the top floor of the Cashel street side of the building were lucky to get out before the exits were cut off by flames. One of the girls said she was sitting by a window when she saw smoke coming from the Colombo street side. Then she saw a crowd gather outside. She told the other girls, but they did not think there was any Are. This was about 3.50 p.m. They decided to take a look round, and went up to the fourth floor. When they saw smoke there they got a bit frightened and made for the main stair, but found the way blocked by the fire. They next tried the fire escape, but it was obscured by smoke. They crossed the building through the tailors’ room, the cafeteria and the cake kitchqn towards the Midlands Motorways garage. They had to wait until a crowd came from the tearooms and then they joined in the rush down the stairs to a door opening on Cashel street. Some fell on the stairs, but no one appeared to be hurt By the time the girls left the second floor, flames were shooting from the floor beneath. Several persons who reached first floor windows on the Cashel street frontage, probably owe their lives to shop attendants and bystanders who found a ladder. This was taken to near the veranda, where some were waiting ready to jump for their lives, and held in position while a rescue was effected. It was subsequently placed against a power pole to assist in the descents. While men and women were screaming in the inferno, one girl leaped from the third storey. She struck the veranda and crashed down on to the street. She was rushed to a nearby chemists’ shop where she was given morphia, and later was moved to a shop further down Colombo street, where she remained until an ambulance arrived. One of the girls working on the ground floor said there was smoke round from the furnishing department. “Then the smoke became very bad,’’ she said. “We couldn’t locate it. We rang the fire brigade. A quarter of an hour after, the smoke came down the stairs, then flames came down the banisters and an evacuation was ordered. There was no panic, as there are many doors. There were some lucky escapes through the windows and roofs. I saw one girl jump from a second floor window and land with a kind of dull thud on the road. “The girls left coats, shoes, and money upstairs,” she continued. “The smoke may have come down the lift from the accountancy department. There seemed to be more panic and hindrance from the spectators than from the staff,” she concluded.