24 KILLED IN FIRE

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28541, 21 March 1958, Page 11

24 KILLED IN FIRE

Garment Factory Blaze (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9.30 p.m.) ALBANY (New York), March 20. A gas explosion in a fivestorey building, on Broadway yesterday, touched off one of the city’s worst fires, killing 24 persons and setting off a panic in which several hysterical workers jumped four storeys to the ground. Fifteen other persons—l 3 of them women garment workers—were injured, several seriously. The fire broke out shortly after 4 p.m. when a worker on tne third floor of the building started to light a gas-operated textile oven with a match. The explosion started the roaring fire. About .60 persons were in the building when the fire broke out. Most of those killed were on the fourth floor, occupied by the Monarch Underwear Company.

The only person missing was the owner of Monarch Company, Mr Abe Becker. He was thought to have met a hero’s death as he struggled to herd his screaming employees to safety. The fire broke out as white, negro and Puerto Rican employees of the S.G.S. Textile Company on the third floor, and the Monarch Company on the fourth, were working at their benches. Blinding smoke and flames chased three persons to the windows where they leaped to the street before firemen could raise their nets. One woman tried to jump into a net, but missed and landed on a would-be rescuers head, injuring him critically. The fire claimed more lives than any other blaze in New York since 1946, when 37 persons were killed in a fire at the Knickerbocker Ice Plant and nearby tenements. Of the 24 persons killed. 18 were women and six were men.

The New York Fire Commissioner. Mr Edward Cavanaugh, said mass hysteria had added to the death toll. He also said the alarm might have been given after an unnecessary delay. Mr Cavanaugh said one stairway had not been touched by the flames. Many of those killed had apparently become hysterical, refusing to escape down the stairs because of heavy smoke, and had returned to the centre of the floor, where they had died. The Governor of New York State, Mr Averell Harriman, last night ordered a State investigation of the fire.