Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1888 — A THEATER HORROR. [ARTICLE]

A THEATER HORROR.

Score* Burned at Oporto—The Building Catches Fire Daring the Performance of .WJM Rush For Life. During a banquet which was being given in the theater at Oporto,Portugal, Tuesday night, at which the galleries as well as the tables were crowdei, the theater caught fire and was entirely destroyed. Many of those inside perished in the flames. Hundreds escaped with their lives, bnt were more or less injured, being burned or braised. The number oi lives lost is unknown. ’ The rains are being searched, and bodies are being found. Ten had been recovered up to 8 o’clock Wednesday morning. The ruins are too hot to prosecute the search further. Many people known to be in the theater are missing. The ruins are surrounded by an immense crowd, and the suspense is awful. The fire occurred daring the performance of a play in which a banqueting scene was being presented on the stage. The play had progressed to the last act when the cry of fire was heard and flames were seen bursting from t’-e stage. An accident had occurred to the gas and the scenery had ignited and flashed up instantly. The flames spread rapidly to the auditorium and a terrible panic followed. The audience rose in an instant and rushed ior the exits,which were quickly choked, hundreds of men, women and children being trampled npon and clothing torn from them in the wild struggle for life. The number of dead taken from the ruins of the theater is 119. Sixty-six oi the bodies were identified, the remainder being merely lamps of charred and blackened flesh.