OCR Text |
Show mm m women wmw in emus AND TWENTY-FIVE WMSLY HAD i - . : - I New Concrete Structure Collapses With-out With-out Warning from Basement to the fourth Floor; Dozen Injured and Dying Dy-ing Persons Rescued from the Debris. LONG BEACH, Cal., Nov. 9. The new Bixby 'hotel being erected on the beach here caved in this morning, supposedly from weak construction, and possibly a score of men are buried in the ruins. The building is of reinforced rein-forced concrete. The whole structure caved in without warning from the. basement. to the fourth floor, leaving but one wing standing. Great confusion reigns, and it is impossible to obtain an accurate report of the number of workmen . '"' Juried in the debris. " W; Estimates of the number of dead range from ten to The injured r.rc being taken from the ruins as fast as they can be extricated". extri-cated". Hundreds of people itocked to the . scene as soon as the news of the disaster disas-ter spread and dozens were pressed into in-to service tovaid in the work of rescue. Police- rarrounded the ruined structure struc-ture and forced the crowds back. It was feared that the remaining wall, which was-badlv shaken bvthe collapse, col-lapse, might fall and cause greater casualties. cas-ualties. -Dozen Are Rescued. Nearly a ' dozen injured, -many , "of them believed to' jbe' dying, have been taken from under the wreckage. The cries of others imprisoned beneath the erembled concrete and steel girders can be heard appealing for help. As many as a dozen dead are underneath. under-neath. The number of casualties is estimated esti-mated now at twenty-five and It may reach more than this. Relaft ves and friends of workmen employed on. the structure quickly flocked to the scene and. rushing frantically fran-tically over the ruins in search of loved ones, added to the hopeless confusion. Many women, wives of the workmen, wept hysterically when they were unable un-able to find trace of their husbands. Others fell faint as they saw men dragged out from under the debris and hurried to the hospital. 1 Bniianr -tO .Cottt I750.0CC.- - - The Hotel Bixby, which has been under un-der course of construction for several months, was to have been one of the best appointed hotels on the Southern coast. The total cost rf the building was estimated at $750,000. The plans called for 276 guest chambers and the building covered a ground space of 175 bv 348 feet. ' Four stories of the structure, which was of reinforced concrete, had reached completion. It was beiug built on the beach facing the ocean and about 200 feet distant from the shore. Austin & Brown of Los Angeles were the architects archi-tects and R. C. fpaulding of Iis Angeles An-geles wns the contractor. The building was of fireproof construction con-struction with entrances on three sides, two observation towers and a twenty-foot twenty-foot promenade around the entire building. |