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Show THE BUFFALO DISASTER. Following are full particulars of the late terrible disaster at Buffalo, meager accounts of which have been received by telegraph: At 9 o'clock in the morning the arched roof of the old part of the New York Central Depot, on Exchange Street, fell with a terrible crash. The cause of the disaster is attributed to the weakening of the walls by making the arches to communicate with the new depot recently built. The roof was overweighed with accumulated snow and weakened by removal of the former offices which had formed a large portion of its support, fell crashing to the earth, burying a number of cars and human forms beneath a tangled mass of iron, glass, snow and brick. The St. (Saint) Louis express on the Central was three and a half hours late and its connecting train on the Lake Shore, composed of four cars with the sleeper, stood upon the outer track waiting for it. A Canadian Southern train had just hauled out of the depot and only twenty minutes before the day express on the Central had borne eastward a large load of living freight. Switch engine No. (Number) 126, manned by Frank Schaefer, engineer, was standing on the middle track ready to take Coroner Scott to east Buffalo. Near the other end of the new depot was a train of cars. On the track just outside of the south wall were some old-fashioned passenger cars belonging to the Central Road. Half a dozen passengers were in the cars of the waiting Lake Shore train, and one or two others who are believed to be lost were standing in the depot near the flat cars. Coroner Scott had just boarded the switch engine and was on the point of bidding good-bye to Henry Walters, Superintendent Tillinghast's confidential secretary, when a sudden, hollow sound as of snow falling in a mass on the roof, was heard, and immediately afterward the south wall, about 60 feet from the new portion, began to totter and fall. Depot Master Kring succeeded in getting beneath a brick wall, which held its position, but his cap was torn from his head by fragments. Mr. Smith ran into the vestibule of the abandoned eating house, and escaped through the cellar. Mr. Walters, who was just behind him, was caught by a timber, and held a prisoner until other portions of the roof crushed out both his life and human shape. The Lake Shore train was buried from sight by roofing material. The switch engine was broken and partly dismantled. An unsightly gap was torn out of the wall of the new waiting room, the fatal mass which crushed the life out of Capt. (Captain) Byrnes. The old cars which stood on the track were all torn to pieces. The work of overhauling the ruins was immediately commenced by members of the fire department and employees of the railroad, and the first two bodies recovered were those of Capt. (Captain) Byrnes and Henry Walters. Shortly after the workmen found the mangled bodies of Wm. (William) Wells, clerk for Car Inspector Howe of the Lake Shore railroad, and two other bodies have been found. The noise resembled that of an earthquake and was heard a mile distant. The whole of the old depot structure, which was 450 feet long by 100 feet wide, is a mass of ruins. At no other hour of the day or night could the accident happened without a more terrible loss of life, as the depot at the time was comparatively empty. The number of narrow escapes was large, but, fortunately, no accidents are reported of a serious nature beyond the four persons killed outright. In the Lake Shore cars of the waiting train a few passengers, perhaps fifteen or twenty in all, were seated, waiting for the train to start. Fortunately not one of them was injured. The bodies of the victims have been taken in charge by the coroner and an investigation will be promptly made. |