ROARING FURNACE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18579, 13 December 1934, Page 5

ROARING FURNACE

TRAGIC HOTEL FIRE 40 BELIEVED TO BE DEAD GHASTLY STORIES TOLD (Jilee. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) LANSING, Dec. 11. Authorities lo night estimated that the fatalities in Kern’s Hotel will eventually reach 40 with the known dead at 14. The police have accounted for 165 out of 190’ known to have been in the hotel. More than 30 are in hospital, and many are in a critical condition. At least 20 bodies are believed to be buried in the ruins, with the possibility of others under the ice of the Grand River, which flows past the rear of the hotel.

Six members of the State Legislature died.

Eleven of the known dead were either killed or fatally injured when they leaped or fell from the roof. Others leaped into the ice-covered river.

Ghastly stories are told by the survivors of women racing through corridors with hair and clothing aflame, and men jumping from the roof, striking obstructions, and hurtling into the river, and of a small group trapped on the roof when it collapsed and precipitated into the roaring furnace. Spectators told of screams that resounded for 20 minutes, and the worse silence that followed after the floors collapsed. Most of those who escaped did so in pyjamas, barefooted, in near zero weather.

One man, wearing only underwear, was found dead in the lobby of a nearby hotel, where he had staggered and collapsed. Exposure was a contributing cause in several deaths.

Many were trapped in the corridors,