TIE BERLIN TRAGEDY

Evening Star, Issue 19758, 7 January 1928, Page 5

TIE BERLIN TRAGEDY

EXPLOSIOH 111 7EBEDEHT DIFFICULT RESCUE WORK* Press Association -By Telegraph—Copyright.BERLIN, January 5. The explosion came without warn* ing. Flames shot up 20ft, and in a moment sleepers on the various floors wcre_ engulfed, beds and all, in 30ft of debris on the ground level. TVelve dead have already been recovered, and . at least four people arc still buried. The search continues with the aid of searchlights. It is a miracle that anyone escaped, as some masses of debris were hurled a quarter of a mile. The rescue work was a task of extreme danger, as crumbling masonry was continually crashing clown. The police and firemen were wry plucky. Several *were injured. The building was a big concrete tenement occupied by ninety-nine persons, belonging to twenty-eight families. Just before the catastrophe thirty guests wl»n had been merrymaking at a birthday party left the building, hut the v host and hostess were killed. A tiny dog 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 the bricks and mortar, whence he bad fallen from the upper floor. He asked the firemen first to extricate his wife, but the firemen found that she was dead. f A mysterious violent explosion oo- j cum-d in a bouse in Berlin early m I the morning of January 3, most of occupants being in bed at the tittup The building collapsed, and a fire started in the wreckage. Ten persons were extricated and found to bo badly . injured.] t