BALL-ROOM TRAGEDY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 118, 21 May 1910, Page 10

BALL-ROOM TRAGEDY.

BURIAL OF THE VICTIMS. The Vienna correspondent of the Telegraph stated on 30th March:—The ballroom catastrophe at Oekerito, of which turther harrowing details are again reported, gives the Hungarian, as well as the Vienna Press an opportunity of pointing out the carelessness of the arrangement, which has been so dreadfully punished. The search for incendiaries has fchown no result, and will probably prove useless. All the papers passionately demand the punishment of the authorities of the place, who not only took no precautions for the safety of the hundreds of people present, but also permitted the nailing down of the great doors of the barn where the ball took place. In this township, occupied by only 2000 persons, the most primitive necessities of life are absent. There is neither doctor, apothecary, nor fire brigade, and even for the burial of a large number of persons not a single gravedigger could be found. The two Oekerito gravediggers refused to perform their office, as they .vere engaged in searching for the Temains of their relatives. One lost six of his owe family, and the other seven, in the terrible fire. Soldiers and wandering gipsies, were thereupon requisitioned for the purpose. The 122 unrecognisable bodies have been interred in a common grave. The floor of the barn is still covered with a heap of human remains ten tfeet high. The persons rescued are nearly all of the male sex, the women and girls having been knocked down by the brutal peasants anxious to save themselves. A man who escaped states that he reached the door, but was held back by people hanging on to his coat-tails. He therefore rapidly took out a penknife and cut off the entire skirt of the garment. In this way he freed himself and rushed out. Oi those injured, seventeen died during the night, many begging the doctors to poison them and thus put an end to their sufferings. Of the dead, 128 were between one and nine years old; and one message states that all the young girls of Oekerito betewen fifteen and twentyfive have perishd in the flames.