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A Terrible Tragedy - Washington War Office Collapses - Where Lincoln Was shot - Five hundred persons buried - Twenty three corpses recovered
London, June 9, 8.25pm
The Bureau of the minister of War, in 10th street, Washington, collapsed without any warning today, and sank into the large cellars which had been excavated beneath it. The immediate cause of the catastrophe was the rottenness of the foundations, which at the time of the accident were underpinned. The Building was long ago condemned as unsafe, but was preserved by the government for the sake of it’s historic connections. It was originally known as Ford’s Theatre, and it was here on the occasion of the performance of “Our American Cousin” on the night of April 14, 1865, that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by Wilkes Booth, brother of the actor whose death by a peculiar coincidence was announced this week. When the structure fell there were 300 clerks at work within its walls and most of them were buried in the ruins. It is believed that quite 100 of the officials have been killed. In the latest report is to the effect that 30 corpses have been recovered.
London, June 10, 6.40pm
In addition to the clerks who were employed in the war office, there were a number of workmen engaged in strengthening the foundations, while many strangers were also in the building at the time of the collapse. It is estimated that altogether quite 500 persons were carried down into the ruins. The shrieks of the injured were appalling, and a terrible sensation was created in the city by the fatality. Three floors crashed down in successive shocks, and the walls and roof immediately afterwards came toppling over on the victims of the disaster. The bodies of the dead were so disfigured as to be almost unrecognisable, while many of those who were extricated alive were fearfully mutilated. The Cavalry were set to work to drag away the beams, rafters, girders, and the flooring joists which had fallen with great masses of masonry upon the dead and dying. Besides the masons engaged in buttressing the basement walls of the building a party of mechanics were making preparations for fixing an electric light installation, and the superstructure proved too old and flimsy to stand the combined assault upon it’s foundations. The ground floor was the first to give way, and 100 persons engaged on the upper stories, warned by the noise, sprang out of the windows onto the roof of an adjoining building and escaped without injury.
London, June 11, 7.30am
The official reports of the disaster at the Washington War Office state that a total of 23 corpses have been extricated from the ruins.
Source: The Advertiser, Cable Messages, Monday June 12, 1893
Cannot find this anywhere. Flavus Canis Dingo, is this real or are you having a lark?
Cannot find this anywhere. Flavus Canis Dingo, is this real or are you having a lark?Wikipedia says it's true, but note the date at the bottom - 1893
118 years ago *facepalm* and here I was trawling through news sites looking for this 'breaking news'.
Be back in a few hours, going to go wrangle some cats into bed and get some more sleep.
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YD sourced the info at the bottom of his post.
Pretty cool. I've never heard this before. Add some supernatural or extraterrestrial element, it'd be an awesome short story.
I saw a DC comics interpretation of this where superman and a villain ended up fighting in the skies while time traveling and were the root cause.