Foreign News: Scalawag’s Cement

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Scalawag’s Cement

Bad cement caused the Chief Inspector of Police of Prague to be run over and killed by a fire engine.

Bad cement made a famed Czechoslovak architect put pistol to his temple and pull the trigger.

Both Houses of Parliament adjourned for half a day on account of the cement.

It rose in a choking dust cloud.

Lumps and chunks of it piled up at the intersection of two streets, in which stand the U. S. Consulate, the Oldsmobile Prague Branch and the Y.M.C.A.

Bigger chunks and huge blocks of cement covered the ruins of an eight story building on the corner which had just collapsed—causing all the havoc, burying alive six score workmen.

Architect Edouard Moravicz stood nearby admiring his building, last week, when it began to sway ever so little. Horror gripped his throat, his eyes bulged, and then he screamed—well knowing that 120 laborers were at work within the toppling structure.

Slowly the defective cement crumbled, crunched, and then with a roar came crashing down.

Only the temporary iron tower for pouring cement remained standing, swaying and lashing wildly, while a single workman clung to the topmost pinnacle, scared but safe. A passing trolley car was derailed by falling chunks, and passengers tumbled out higgelty piggelty—some gravely cut and wounded. Meanwhile, shrieks & groans ascended from the fallen building’s debris.

To horror-stricken Architect Edouard Moravicz all this seemed too much to bear. Fleeing from the awful sight and sounds he sought a pistol, found Death.

So sleepy and sedate is Prague, as a rule, that when all the city’s fire engines careened forth at once through its ancient, narrow streets, last week, someone was sure to get run over. Paradoxically the only person killed by a fire engine was the one man most needed to organize rescue work, the Chief Inspector of Police. But eager subordinates sprang to take his place. Within 30 minutes 2,000 police and volunteers were delving and tunneling into the ruins. Meanwhile frenzied wives and mothers of the buried workmen arrived screaming, and had to be fought off to a distance by a second hastily assembled corps of police and soldiers. Several women, disheveled, broke through police lines and rushed among the ruins, calling to their buried sons or husbands, clawing and tugging at huge, immobile blocks of cement.

Tunneling from the cellars of neighboring buildings proved the most effective rescue method. Forty crushed and bloody corpses were soon recovered, and 26 wounded men no less bloody. Meanwhile buried survivors made known their whereabouts by tapping. When located they were succored, first by drilling small holes to admit air, next by enlarging the holes until sandwiches and heartening bottles of brandy could be passed in, and finally by excavating and propping up passages through which they could crawl. A few perished, even at this late stage, when some of the propped passageways collapsed. Injured were 30 policemen, soldiers and volunteers; killed none.

Dramatic was the arrest of the scalawag building contractor who was believed, last week, to be more responsible than the suicided architect for the tragedy. When policemen dragged the contractor forth, more dead than alive, they hadlittle trouble in extracting a confession. Apparently he had got behind his building schedule, had endeavored to speed up construction by pouring in cement before it was sufficiently mixed. Penitent, he blubbered.

Chemists who analyzed chunks of the fallen building pronounced the cement not only badly mixed but adulterated. Quickly scotched was a scandalous rumor that “faulty American cement mixers” were responsible for the holocaust.

Members of Parliament, who had adjourned and rushed over to watch the rescue work, talked a great deal and loudly about enacting a new code of building laws.

Rescue work was continued as night fell. A few moments after midnight tolled there was heard an ominous crash. In another quarter of the city another building had collapsed. It too had been nearing completion, and since the workmen had all gone home to slumber no one was killed. Next morning experts again croaked, “faulty construction.” Nervous, superstitious citizens waited for a third building to fall.