Some idea of the intensity of the fire here can be obtained from the fact that the steel lining inside the strong room of the'Chartered Bank was too hot to be touched on the tenth day after the fire. On that day, a party went ashore to open the Chartered Bank's safes. After penetrating two feet into the wall, they found the steel lining so hot that the party felt that it would be advisable to postpone operations for another ten days. Some papers inside one of the British Consulate safes caught fire on the door being opened.
All the hooks of the Hongkong and Shanghai, Bank were got out of the building before the fire, as a result of strenuous work, but they were destroyed by fire on the pier to which they were taken.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.