Marseilles, Oct. 28.
Today's session of the Radical Sodalist Party Congress had to be postponed until tomorrow as the result of a huge fire early this afternoon, when two hotels housing French Ministers of State were burnt down.
The conflagration broke out about 230 p.m. and gutted a large department store and two neighbouring hotels, in which the Premier, M. Edouard Daladier, and other Radical Socialist Ministers were staying.
Over fifty people are believed to have been killed in the catastrophe, including a man and woman employee of the Nouvelles Galeries, while members of seventeen families were reported missing.
About 30 more people were injured and have been sent to hospital for treatment. It is feared that among the charred wreckage more victims will be found.
It was while they were at the Congress meeting that M. Daladier and the other statesmen received news of the huge blaze. They left immediately personally to inspect the firemen's work.
Because of the destructive fire, M.
Daladier and several Ministers had to move to the building of the local prefecture, while several hundred Congress-members were forced to move into other hotels. Some sought temporary refuge on board the Messageries Maritimes liners, the Patria and D'Artagnan.
The blaze was such that fire brigades from the neighbouring towns. of Istres and Tarascon came to the Marseilles force's aid. Several fire-fighters from Lyons, 400 kilometres. away, were also rushed here by special train. It was about 7 o'clock this evening that the fire was finally brought under control—Havas.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.