Nation: Holiday Eve Disasters

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> Coeds in four-story Aquinas Hall, the largest women's dormitory at Rhode Island's Providence College, had stopped their late-night cramming for final exams to engage in a bit of holiday fun. Competing for a $100 prize for the most elaborately decorated dorm, students on the top floor of the 38-year-old building pasted gaily colored tissue paper and Christmas posters on the walls and hung crepe-paper streamers from the ceilings. One coed scrawled MERRY CHRISTMAS with spray snow on the windows; another adjusted a gooseneck desk lamp to shine on a cardboard nativity scene set up on three metal garbage cans in the corridor.

Shortly before 3 a.m., the festive decorations caught fire, turning the 120 ft.-long hallway into a tunnel of flames. Aroused by a shrill fire alarm, residents on the lower floors rushed down three stairways to safety. Some students on the fourth floor prudently stayed in their rooms, which were separated from the corridor by fire-resistant doors; they were plucked to safety by fire fighters on ladders. But others panicked, threw open their doors and plunged into the inferno in a desperate sprint for the stairs. Two oeds leaped to their deaths on the frozen ground 40 ft. below. Said one sobbing Providence student: "People were telling :hem not to jump. I guess they didn't hear." Fire fighters needed only 42 minutes to douse the blaze—but that was time enough for seven young women to die and 15 others to be injured. Five bodies were found huddled together in the corridor, less than 75 ft. from the nearest escape stairway.

Aquinas Hall had easily passed a city safety inspection last September. Further, investigators said there were no violations of the city's fire code, even though the dormitory is not equipped with sprinklers, outside fire escapes or smoke detectors in every room. Providence city regulations require all these to be installed in new buildings. But the rules exempt dormitories that were built before the code took effect last year.

The day after the fire, final exams were canceled, and students packed their bags to head for home. The Dominican priests who run the college made plans to attend the dead students' funerals and visit the families of those who were injured. Fire officials sifted the debris for clues to the cause of the blaze. The most likely suspect: the gooseneck lamp that had illuminated the cardboard crèche.