CINEMA FIRE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 8 September 1926, Page 5

CINEMA FIRE.

FIFTY DEATHS. i PRIEST TAKES A CENSUS. . "• T I y.vt- • : . Association-Electric Telegraph-Copyright. LONDON, Tuesday. ! ' Forty-eight victims of the-cinema.fire at. Drumcologer, near .Limerick, . have been identified. The jjarish priest.went, Tpund the vil-, •lage : taking a census-. The havoc is so great that there is little: tra.ee/sOf! many*' victims, and at a rough estimate, fifty,, deaths are'establishedonly .by tlie fact that! at least this- number of ■persons are known to be riiissing. '. It is f-tnriid' that 11 persons injured will not re'c'ovet. . . •*,;; The cinema proprietor and the opera.tor have been detained. A crowd smashed the windows of the operator’s, house.

EVIDENCE AT THE INQUEST,

(Received Wednesday, 12.40 p.m.) LONDON, .Tuesday.

At the inquest on the .Drumcollogher victims, Forde, the owner! of the picture plant, gave evidence that he used an unprotected projector among Jhe audience. The films were taken out of their metal cases and were lying exposed in a table where there was a naked candle. He had no fire-quenching apparatus. The operator, Downing, gave evidthat someone hit the. flames with l||s«pap, causing the fire to spread. 'Trite film that was being shown at the time of the outbreak was entitled “The Ten Commandments.”