91 ARE MISSING.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 457, 19 May 1932, Page 9

91 ARE MISSING.

Survivors’ Stories of Narrow Escapes. WOMAN SCREAMED FOR HELP. (Continued from page 1.) United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received May 19, 12.20 p.m.) LONDON, May 18. The arrival of the Andre Lebon at Djibouti with her batch of survivors . from the Georges Philippar, including Captain Vicq, enabled the Messageries Maritimes Company to state that there were altogether 769 passengers and crew aboard the Philippar. Thus far 678 have been accounted for, and therefore ninety-one are missing. It is now reported that Dr Sze disembarked at Ilong Kong. Those missing include M. Albert Londres, the well-known Paris journalist, and also the daughter and son-in-law of the Chief Justice of Indo-China. Mesdames Vincente and Bouvier are convinced that many of the first-class passengers were burned to death. They discovered that their own escape was cut off when the last boat left without them. “We screamed, but the roar of the flames drowned our voices,” they said, “ so we rushed to the bridge and clanged the ship’s bell until the boat put back and rescued us through a porthole near the water’s edge.” A passenger named Brault helped to rescue eighty children aboard, and thinks that nearly all were saved. He saw Alvis Wendling jump into the sea with three-year-old Jacquot Bernard in her arms. The Sovietskaia picked up both, and Wendling is now fathering the child, who cries for his missing mother, but won’t leave his rescuer for the women who wish to take care of him. All accounts emphasise the amazing rapidity with which the fire spread. There is no explanation of why it could not be isolated.