The Seattle star. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1899-1947, 1908-01-14
Women and Children Trsmplej Dsws BY An = Px1
Exits Blocked and Bodies Of Victixs Are Pdej Up
Terrible Scenes Are Wasessea
(By United Press.0

., wee burned 10 death in the fire and panic which fol-
,owed a gas explosion at Rhoads' opera house last
night
Fully rs of the injured are expected to die and
this win swell the total of deaths to 22s in one of the
worst theatre hoocausts which has occurred since the
terrible disaster in Chicago when the Iroqnois theatre
was destroyed and hundreds lost their lives.
Dead bodies cover the ground in all directions
and rushing frantealy from body to the other
scores looking in a last anguish for missing ones
The opera house crowded with the members
~ ST Iohn's Lutheran Sunday school, who were at
tending benefit given for that Church While the
show was in progress tank exploded The actors
deavored to quiet the audience but IN their anxiety TO
make themselves heard and 10 avoid the awful STAN
uede OF the women and children the coal oil lamps
which were used at the footlights were overturned
setting the place fire The flames, fed by the OIL
sho. almost to the ceiling. and there was wild rush
of the 700 persons TO escape from the burning building
Scores of women and children were trampled upon and
many who escaped being burned to death died after
being dragged from the opera house. In many cases
il is said entire families have been wiped out. The
scene which followed the explosion is Undesirable.
Scores OF persons who were in the balcony at the
time the explosion occurred jumped from the windows
and sustained fractured limbs and skulls.
To add to the terrible disaster the fire apparatus
became disabled and the structure left entirely to
the mercy of the flames.
Assistance was asked from Pottstown. but before
the fire apparatus from that city reached this place
the entire structure roaring furnace
Had the women and children needed the warning
OF the cooler heads in the audience the horrible loss OF
HE might have been avoided but there the usual
panic and stampede which invariably follows such
accident The flames spread rapidly and commun
Gated to the other part of the building. Men. women
and children rushed for the many exits, and the weak
H sex and the children were tramped and manned in
the mad rush TO gain the streets.
Special trains from Reading and Pottstown,
rying nurses and doctors rushed the Of
the disaster Every home within radius of half
dozen blocks of the opera house made temporary
hospital, where the wounded taken in carriages
and other conveyances.
AS the night wore on the crowds surrounding the
building grew to such proportions that almost
impossible for the police force which had been aug
mented by score of men from Pottstown and Read
ing, TO keep the people back
One woman, who said she had lost her entire fam
ny IN the theatre, with difficulty restrained from
throwing herself into the roaring flames.
few minutes after midnight the wall Of the
theatre collapsed. The flames broke out anew. and
those who had vainly hoped to be able to find the
mains OF some of their beloved turned in despair
IRON the scene Of the awful catastrophe 1t is estat
Cd that at least IS persons injured the stairway
or by jumping from the windows OF this number at
least score were fatally hurt.
1t developed this morning that the disaster was
Que principally to the panic that followed the gas
"iAANii Wao lloA SSllOuo ltSSii- II Wdo iouo
enough, however to start a stampede among the wom-
en- and children. 1t repetition of the Iroquois
tneatre fire in Chicago, only on a smaller scale. In
SANITY following the first rush the small exit
eogged with bodies Those who tried leave through
.ne main exit encountered this wall of human forms,
neaped one top of the other AS the panic increased
he heap grew The lives of those nearest the foot
were crushed out in a twinklng.
While this of death was being enacted in
ne front Of the theatre, the members of the amateur
theatrical company that had been furnishing amuse-
ment TOR the women and children fled through the