WANGANUI TRAGEDY

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 10847, 12 March 1921, Page 7

WANGANUI TRAGEDY

ADDITIONAL DETAILS CHILDREN SUFFOCATED "WITHOUT SUFFERING. A PATHETIC SIGHT. - FEB PBESS ASSOCIATION. WANGANUI, March 11. Discussing last night’s fire tragedy, Senior-Sergeant Bourke stated that m forty years’ experience in the force ho had had many pathetic duties to perform, but nothing had moved him so deeply as th« sight of the bodies of tho three sturdy little chaps lying cold and still on the slab in tlie morgue. The youngbst boy was badly burned, pieces of blackened kapoc adhering to the skin, but the scars of the others were not so severe, and jiossibly they may have been mercifully suffocated without suffering greatly. Mrs. Bishop states that, she left the house to go to a neighbour’s at 8.15 p.m., the children being asleep. Miss Gray, an elderly lady who occupied the front room, took the baby to bed with her, and five of the uiVildren were in the hack room, twp being in another Mrs McKenzie, a next-door neighbour, and her daughter, saw flames issuing from the back portion 1 ofl the house and rushed to the assistance, meeting Miss Gray with the baby coming out of the front room. After assisting these two to safety Mrs McKenzie and her daughter rescued two others; one from the back bedroom, but the flames prevented them from re-entering by the door. They ran round the hack and tried to get in a window, but a bed and chest of drawers blocked their ingress. The brigade then arrived - and took over the rescue work. Apparently the children were all asleep at the time of the outbreak.

A young man named Henry Luke rescued a girl from thfe front room. She was burned about the hands, and is progressing satisfactorily at the hospital. One hoy escaped through a window.