SHOCKING KINEMA FIRE

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 83, 2 January 1930, Page 11

SHOCKING KINEMA FIRE

LARGE NUMBER OF LIVES LOST CROWDED THEATRE IN PAISLEY CHILDREN’S SPECIAL HOGMANAY PERFORMANCE United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. (Rec. January 1, 7 p.m.) London, December 31. There was a shocking kinema fire at Paisley. Eighty people already have been certified to be dead, including many children. The casualty list is still growing. Two hundred have been sent to hospital. The kinema was crowded with children, when smoke was seen pouring out of the windows. The fire brigade ran up ladders. There was a wild scramble for the doors. Firemen pulled out children from the doors and windows. Children were overcome and suffocated by the fumes, and many were trampled down.

Heartrending Scenes.

The building was surrounded by frantic parents, and there was a huge crowd, as the theatre is in the centre of the city. All traffic was stopped. Heartrending scenes were enacted at the infirmary by distracted mothers. Identification is slowly proceeding. It was a special children’s Hogmanay performance at the Glen Kinema, in the heart of Paisley. The theatre was crowded out by 1500 children, whose ages ranged from infancy to fourteen years. The children, seeing the hall fill with smoke, and not knowing the cause thereof, L .t fearing the worst, tried to escape by attempting to reach the exit facing them. At the rear of the building beyond the exit was a flight of eight steps, and it only needed one or two of the children to lose their footing and the result was the worst tragedy of its kind the country has ever known. There was a secondary tragedy awaiting the children filling the balcony.' Again 'somebody lost their foothold, and those behind came tumbling down until they were piled six to eight deep. Thereafter there was a sombre story of slow asphyxiation, for nobody lost their life through burning. The building itself was not ignited, but the children were not to know that. The operator had shown one film, which was re-wound and placed in its container. He heard a hissing sound, and saw smoke. He picked up the container, hoping to get it outside the building, but he only reached the vestible. Shouting for the manager, the latter took the box and cast it through a side door to a vacant allotment. Stampede for the Doors. In that short space of time the children saw the smoke. When the manager returned to the auditorium all was pandemonium. Already the children were heaped breast high beyond the door leading to the exit He opened another door on the other side of the building, but the smoke terrified the children, and the. refused for a long time to be led thither. The firemen, who arrived inside two minutes, were welcomed as old friends. They did much to restore confidence, but the first effect was a further stampede for the other door. A policeman was among the first to see the smoke coming through an upstairs window, and got there in time to meet the tumbling cascade of children. A civilian who was passing heard the policeman shout: “For God’s sake come and help!” Together they tried to disentangle the heaped-up mites, and passed them out singly as they were extricated. The policeman gave his baton to a civilian, telling him to break the windows and let in rescuers. ' Ladders were brought, and other rescuers climbed to the upper-story windows, and thus reached the balcony and dropped down to the ground floor, where they found children in heaps at the bottom of the stairs. Others were lying still under the seats. Many mgst have been dead even then, be-

cause the fumes choked the rescuers. A general summons was circulated for medical and nursing services. Children Taken to Hospital. Police stopped cars, lorries and tram-cars, and turned out the passengers, placing in children, alive and dead, and took them to hospital, where the nurses were entertaining the patients at a' special Hogmanay tea, ■festivities which were rudely broken off as the stream of victims began to arrive. Some of the nurses were appalled at the magnitude of the disaster and were overcome and fainted. Those already dead were taken below to the basement to make room for the living. A doctor living close to the kinema organised a first-aid station in a factory yard, and thither some score* at first were taken. The doctor called for women volunteers and hurriedly instructed them in artificial Respiration. The official death roll this evening is seventy-two, all due to asphyxiation. Thirty-seven cases remain in the hospital, mostly suffering from shock. REVISED CASUALTY LIST MANY DEATHS DUE TO GAS POISONING . . STORIES OF HEROISM (Rec. January 1, 9 p.m.) London, January 1. The revised list of casualties at the kinema fire shows that 69 children are dead and 37 injured. 1 A grim coincidence is that the film being shown when the disaster occurred was entitled “The Crowd.” Seven doctors confirm the growing impression that most of the deaths were due to gas poisoning. The chief officer of the brigade reports that many of the gas brackets were broken. Apparently children trying to climb over each other clung to the brackets. The exceptional crowd of children was due to the fact that the performance was a special New Year treat, two children being admitted for threehalfpence. Distressing details have accumulated hourly. One baby of 18 months was found lying on a pile. Some women and mothers were so hysterical that they identified bodies which had previously been identified by other parents. Another fireman says the children who were alive seemed to be mad with terror. One boy'was jammed in a corner and hemmed in by bodies. He was not looking at the dead children, but upwards all the time, whimpering and wringing his hands, as though trying to ward off some horror.

Fortunately, apart from the stark tragedy, there are many stories of heroism. One young man alone rescued eighteen.