ROARING FURNACE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 257, 27 September 1935, Page 9

ROARING FURNACE.

THE WAPPING FIRE. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Sept. 25. Most of the 1400 firemen wore gas masks to fight the blaze at the colonial wharf at Wapping. It was London’s most spectacular fire for many years, and raged for 12 hours, completely gutting the seven-storey building and destroying stores of rubber, tea and spirits valued at £1.000,000. Two hundred policemen were needed to control the watching crowds. West End dine vs in evening dress hastened to the scene in taxis, and pleasure steamers crowded with people cruised as near to the blaze as the heat would allow. Flames from the burning rubber shot 100 feet in the air, bathing the city and river in a great red glow. Within five hours the whole building was a roaring furnace. There was a terrifying scene when the great riverside wall crashed. Firemen scrambled to ,safety just in time, but blazing debris fell on four barges, destroying thei». Streams of molten rubber ran down the streets and blocked drains, while a film of burning rubber spread over the Thames.

UNDERWRITERS HIT. EXTENT OF £1,000,000. Received September 27, 11.55 a.m. LONDON, Sept. 26. The Sydney wool fire cost the London underwriters at least a quarter of a million pounds. The contract for this amount was placed here, as well as the reinsurances of Australian and New Zealand Companies in London. The total claims for this and the Wapping fire are expected to amount to a million pounds.