MONDAY NIGHT'S RAID.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14625, 1 February 1918, Page 5

MONDAY NIGHT'S RAID.

MOST TERRIBLE ON RECORD.

CROWDED SHELTER BOMBED

VICTIMS MOSTLY WOMEN AND

CHILDREN

SCENE OF INDESCRIBABLE

HORROR

Australian and N.Z. Cable Association'

Lontlon, Jan. 30. The raid on Monday night was tin worst yet carried out.

A bomb was dropped on a large establishment used as a raid shelter in a district thickly populated. There is no exact estimate of the number of persons sheltering, but it varies from 300 to 1000. The staff state trat it was capable of holding 1000, and that it was crowded.

Firemen who assisted in removing the bodies declare that the brigade removed aboLt 25 during the night. It is believed that 13 others have since been recovered.

Tie big brick building looks as if it had been cut in half by a, huge guillotine, the interior walls and floors then collapsing.

The police and fire brigade assert that it is impossible even yet to give a reliable estimate of the number of deaths, but it is certain1 that the majority were women and rhiH.-n.

None of tie survivors seem able to give a coherent account of the terrible ensuing scene.

It -was a scene of indescribable horror, to which fire gave the last touch. The basement was a raging inferno within a few minutes.

Fire brigades, police, soldiers and civiliars did what men could do to rescue the survivors, but many were injured, and most perished in tie flames.

The building was soon in flames from top to bottom. Daybreak found it a smoking ruin.

Abott a hundred employees were working when the alarm was given, and they assisted tie shelterers to the basement and tended those reeding attention during the raid. Many of the employees were among tie casualties. Many had left the shelter during a lull in the barrage, but flocked back when the guns resumed, announcing that the air attack was being renewed. A bomb was dropped almost immediately

•Tuesday right's raid proved that London is growing increasingly difficult of approach. Gothas attempted to pierce tie fierce barrage, but most of the gunfire was distant, showing that the enemy had been worsted,, and had finally been forced to accept the inevitable and fly seaward.

CABLE NEWS.

[Press Association.—Copyright.]