Struggle to Save Fire Survivors Continues |
CHICAGO, Dec. 3 - (AP) -. |
A long, hard struggle to save survivors of Chicago's tragic school fire was in progress in the quiet hospitals Wednesday while the 90 dead were mourned in the hush of funeral homes. |
Puzzled investigators pushed efforts to determine the cause. |
They were joined by officials from other cities seeking to make sure their schools are protected against a similar disaster. |
An appeal for blood for children under treatment in hospitals touched off a rush of donors. |
Gifts of money to help familes of the injured and the dead poured in at a rate of more than $2000 an hour. The fund passed the $60,000 mark 24 hours after it was established. |
Still in hospitals were 72 patients who were burned or injured in other ways, and 14 were on the critical list. Those with severe burns confronted doctors with the difficult double task of preserving life while healing bodies. |
Fire Commissioner Robert J. Quinn expressed belief the fire started in papers stacked near the bottom of a wooden staircase in the northeast corner of the school. |
But how it began remained an unanswered question. Arson is being considered. So is the possibility that a schoolboy sneaked a smoke in the basement and carelessly flipped away his cigaret. |
While schools in many parts of the nation were being rechecked for fire hazards, officials of at least a half dozen cities arranged to come to Chicago to get a first hand account of the disaster of Our Lady of the Angels School. Among them were officials of New York, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Miami, San Francisco and CLeveland. |