Rescue

The firemen of the town of Coimbra. about 150 miles north of Lisbon, decided last week to hold a realistic drill. Hundreds of spectators, out to celebrate Portugal's Holy Queen religious festival, gathered, and 20 youngsters, many of them sons of the firemen, clambered into an old four-story frame building. The boys were paid 45-c- to play the part of "tenants." The firemen, having doused the structure with gasoline, retired to their station 400 yards away to await the alarm.

A torch was applied, the alarm sounded, the firefighters raced to the rescue. Before they could get their water into play, however, the flames had leaped up the wooden walls, roared through the whole flimsy structure. Panic-stricken onlookers, running away, got in the firemen's way. Two boys were burned alive, eight jumped screaming to their deaths on the ground. Four were so seriously burned that they died later in the hospital.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.