EXPLOSION IN BERLIN

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 84, 7 January 1928, Page 9

EXPLOSION IN BERLIN

HEAVY DEATH-ROLL . SEARCH FOR VICTIMS CONTINUED (Rec. January 0, 8.20 p.m.) Berlin, January 5. The explosion in a house in the cityreported yesterday came without warning. Flame shot up twenty feet, and in a moment the sleepers on the various floors were engulfed, beds and all, in thirty feet of debris on the ground level. Twelve dead have already been recovered. At least four are still buried. The search continues with the aid of searchlights. Twenty are seriously injured. It was a miracle that anyone escaped, as some masses of debris were hurled a quarter of a mile. Rescue was a task of extreme danger, as the crumbling masonry’ was continually crashing down. Police and firemen were very plucky, and several were injured. The building was a big concrete tenement, occupied by 99 persons, belonging to 28 families, just before the catastrophe 30 guests who had been merrymaking at a birthday party left the building, but the host and hostess were killed. A tiny doy was heard whining in the darkness. The firemen sawed through a heavy beam and saved the dog, and their acetylene lamps revealed the dog’s master hanging head downwards among bricks and mortar whence he had fallen from the upper floor. He asked the firemen first to extricate his wife, but the firemen found that she was dead. _ The explosion is ascribed to a refrigerator in a five-story block’ of flats, or to the escape of coal gas. (Rec. January 6, 8.50 p.m.) Berlin, January 5. The latest death roll in the explosion is fifteen, and one missing.