PEOPLE'S ANGER

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 140, 15 June 1936, Page 9

PEOPLE'S ANGER

SUPPRESSION OF FACTS

RUMANIAN GRANDSTAND DISASTER

AT LIvVST 12(1 DKATIIS

I (Jnlted I'rcs! • ifv eu-cirlr Tele prnph—Cop.vrijht. LONDON", .Tune Hi. The "-News-Chronicle's" Bucharest correspondent says that the indignation caused by the collapsc of the grandstand at the recent Scout review has risen to a fury which is beating about the Throne itself. Relatives have already been officially informed of the deaths of 363 persons, but it is positively known that no fewer than 420 were killed, besides 93 others with broken backs and 380 with amputated legs and arms.

1 The public have known the terrible results of the disaster from the beginning, but newspapers were allowed to print only an official communique stating that only three were killed. The suppression' of the facts is interpreted as an attempt to shield those responsible for the catastrophe, which it is asserted was caused by criminal negligence, by poor work, and the use of defective material. Many of these killed belonged to distinguished families.

One paper says: "This happened because the King is surrounded by liars and robbers." Another says: '\Rui mania is a land without responsible Government, but nobody expects that any member of the Government will be punished and, since the grandstand builders were Jews, they will probably be made the scapegoats."

The grandstand, a tiered building sixty feet in height, collapsed with a noise like a thunderclap when King Carol and Dr. Benes, President of Czechoslovakia, were reviewing Boy Scouts and Girl Guides at a display in honour of the sixth anniversary nf King Carol's restoration. A cable dated June 8 said that thirty persons had been killed and 600 injured.