Six Chinese, including a baby girl, lay dead in the Public Mortuary yesterday as a result of the disastrous fire which swept through a block of Chinese shops in the congested area at Fokien and Nanking Roads on Friday night. Several other residents were still missing last night and the search for bodies was continued. The Fire Brigade further worked for several hours removing masonry and beams that threatened to fall on those still in the immediate vicinity.
The fire destroyed a row of furniture shops and a spectacle-maker's shop in Chihli Road, a narrow lane which connects with Nanking Road at the small Buddhist temple known as Nanking Road Temple or "Hung Miao." The number of casualties was due, in part, to the fact that the lane is the temporary abode of hundreds of refugees. One of the important tasks of the police, under Chief Insp. J. A. McFarlane, was to clear the houses that were in the path of the fire so as to save as many lives as possible. Of the six fatali-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.