The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-10-30
NEW YORK'S FIRE DISASTER
FIRST FIGURES OF LIVES LOST
 GREATLY EYAGGERATED.

Bodies Are in the Rufns-Thtrsy-fi
 Persons Reported Missing-No Fire
 men Were IkiIIed-Search for Bodies
 Begun Soon as the Fire Is Out-No
 Bodies Found Up to Early This Norm
 ing--The Property Loss WiIi be Fully
 $1,OOO, ,OO0- Origin of Fire Not Known
 New York, Oct. 29.-As the result of a
 small fire several successive explosions
 of chemicals occurred in the drug store
 at Warren and Greenwich streets to-
 day and blew down a dozen buildings
 and badly damaged a score of others.
 The loss of life is not known but from
 all sources of information it is gath
 cred that there are perhaps the bodies of thirty persons in the ruins, though
 because of the hot debris and the dift1-
 culty of moving it, no body had been
 removed up to midnight. The first re-
 ports of the loss of life running from
 150 to 200 are now known to have been
 exaggerated.
 The disaster was one of the most ter
 rible that has ever occurred in this
 city and may rival the Windsor hotel fire in it's appalling results, though in loss of property it will be worse. Chief
 Croker of the fire department said to- night that the loss to property is fully $1,000000,
 The action of the tremendous catas- trophe was more widespread than the city has known for long time. Build ings fell on themselves or toppled over on others; iron girders were thrown yards away smashing through great walls; whole structures fell into the streets in piles. People walking through the streets were knocked down and dangerously injured by timbers, glass and steel, horses were thrown down, windows, store fronts and all sorts of property for blocks in every direction were wrecked and damaged.
 Thirty-fve persons are reported missing and one hundred men, women and children are on the list of the in jured-
 Search for bodies is going on and will be continued all night. Chief Croker said tonight that no fireman had per ished in the flames, all his men having been accounted for
 The only sign of a body come upon by midnight by the workmen was some blood on brick. picked up by man on the site of the Home Made hotel. He was taking out some refuse from an upper floor when he found the brick It was beloved by those who looked at it to be stained by human blood No other trace of a human being was found during the nights work.
 The Fire fin Detail.
 The big building of Tarrant & Co.,, makers of medicinal specialties, stand ing at the northwest corner of Green wich and Warren streets and filled with chemicals, took fire in some way that may never be known at about 12:15 o'clock this afternoon. It was sixteen minutes after noon when a citizen rushed into the house of fire engine 29 on Chambers street, near Greenwich, and shouted that Tarrant's drug store was on fire. He had seen a volume of black smoke coming from the third story window. An alarm was turned in and soon afterwards a. second and third alarm. One fire company from Station | 62 had just arrived, when a terrific ex- plosion occurred and threw the entire | engines crew down the stairway.
 The firemen, realizing the danger of | their position, rushed out of the build ing to the street. The explosion had I filled the street in front with a shower of falling glass and small debris, which sent the crowd, which was already gathering on the opposite side of the walks fleeing for safety and threw the engine horses into 8 panic.
 Engineer Rocksberry was unfastening l1. ,,,I Tipn of +hn company was turing the safety valve of the engine, when the explosion oc- cured and covered them with the shower of glass. Both were injured, as was another fireman belonging to the company.
 Captain Devanney of the company from Station 62 ordered his crew back into the building again. They were nearing the doorway for the second time! when there came another explo- sion, more terrific than the first, and the whole crew was hurled across Greenwich street, Devanney being so badly injured that he was sent to Hud- son Street hospital.
 In the meantime the other engines that responded to the alarm had col Iected and the firemen were busy res cuing people from surrounding build lngs. They took many girls down the only fire escape upon the building, and more persons had been carried down the escapes of the restaurant next door and the building adjoining on Warren street. 7 The second explosion occurred about i've minutes after the first. From the accounts of witnesses the building | seemed to leap into the air, and in a moment masses of brick wall, timbers s md stone were falling into the streets. I The force of the explosion tore away ' he walls of the big commission store f ,auses fronting on Washington street ,nd caused them to collapse in mass I if timbers, boxes and barrels, from [ which the flames which burst out from f he Tarrant building, like the belching i # cannon, at once broke forth. f Across Warren street to the opposite Q the flames leaped, setting \ hem all on fire at once, the force of the I xplosion demolishing windows and all n wooden structure about the houses. In
 moment Warren street was choked IT ID with a mass of debris and the whole + lace was afame. The great explosion q vas followed by half dozen more, V