The University Daily
KANSAN
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
Monday, November 24, 1980 Vol. 91, No. 65 USPS 650-640
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DREW TORRES/Kansas stal
With 8½ minutes left in the game, freshman tailback Kerwin Bell, foreground, reflects on the Jayhawks' loss to Missouri, 31-6. Seated next to Bell is freshman quarterback Frank Seurer, also sitting out the rest of the game. See related story back page.
Earthquake devastates southern Italy
Bv United Press Internationa $ ^{1} $
NAPLES, Italy—The most severe earthquake in 70 years hit southern Italy yesterday, shaking an area from Sicily to Venice, devastating villages and triggering prison riots in Naples. Officials said that at least 200 people were killed and that the death toll could top 300.
and crucial to the success of people were injured, officials said. Rescue workers were hampered by dense fog as they picked through the rubble of collapsed buildings in Naples and other towns and villages stretching from Venice, in the north, to Sicily, in the south.
Officials confirmed at least 200 dead in the area nine hours after the quake struck, and said they feared the death toll would rise.
THE QUKE hit at 12:30 p.m. CST (7:30 p.m.
Italy) during the dinner hour.
July 17 The quake measured between 6.5 and 6.8 on the Richter scale and was most severe in Potenza, about 86 miles outside of Naples. One hundred
people were thought to have been killed in a village church in Balvano.
The Richter scale is an open-ended scale measuring the ground motion on a seismograph. For each increase of one on the scale, ground pressure increases by 0.1 mPa; ground elevation six is "severe," and seven is "major."
Continuing aftershocks *ruled* through Potenza and the surrounding area.
Children ran crying through the streets, their faces caked with dirt and blood, as rescue teams tried to reach victims in one of the hardest hit areas, the mountain village of Bishop, near the year-old church collapsed on 300 worshippers at evening services, killing as many as 100 people.
HALF OF Potenza was reported severely damaged.
"The center of the town is no longer recognizable in town Salvatore Pagluca, in Salvallo in Baviano."
Rescue workers, including an Italian army infantry battalion, dug through the collapsed stone walls of Balvano's medieval buildings in Valparaiso to retrieve six arc lights powered by gasoline generators.
parish priest in the city,
"It was terrible," the priest said, his voice
breaking into sobs. "Half my church collapsed,
and there are still people in there."
An estimated 300 worshipers were praying in the church of Santa Maria Assunta at the time of the collage, said Pagluca, one of dozens who managed to crawl out of the rubble unscatted. More than half the buildings in the village were flattened.
AUTHORITIES IN Potenza, a city of 50,000, said they feared another 60 to 70 people might be dead in the village of Pescopagana in the same region.
Hundreds of thousands of residents in cities and towns throughout southern Italy fled into the streets when the quake hit, to avoid falling walls and plaster.
Electricity and telephone service was cut off for most of the region. Authorities said emergency rescue squads were rushing to the area from throughout Italy.
See EARTHQUAKE page 5
Weather
City to protest Anderson's attempt to halt demolition
It will be partly cloudy today, with a high near 40, according to the National Weather Service in Topeka. It winds today will remain strong, but it will mostly cloudy tonight, with a
Tomorrow also will be mostly cloudy,
with a high near 40.
There is a chance of rain or snow.
Where the snow falls lows in the 20s and highs in the 40s.
By JENNIFER LISTON
Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
The city will file a protest this week to a Lawrence woodworker's request for an injunction to prevent the demolition of a building that was built by Mr. Widgen, assistant city manager, said yesterday.
The building's former owner, Bryan Anderson, said he sought the injunction Thursday in the State Court of Appeals in Topeka because his case appealing the city's condemnation of his building would not be decided until after the building was demolished.
Although the city on Wednesday asked Anderson to move or face eviction, he has not moved out of the building. Anderson's contract to rent the building from the city expired Nov. 15. The city may ask to have Anderson evicted if he does not move out soon. Wilden said.
Anderson lost ownership of the building when
the city condemned the building in January for a
4 message packet扣入 from City Hall.
MGM death count expected to top 100
Anderson accused the city of trying to rush the demolition before his apeal was ruled on.
By United Press International
LAS VEGAS, Nev.—Searchers expect to find 40 more bodies in the blackened ruins of the MGM Grand Hotel, fire officials said yesterday, that would have been the worst battle in history to more than 100.
"I can guarantee the fact that the wrecking ball is over there before the case is settled."
Anderson's supporters will hold an open meeting tonight at the public library to discuss the case and a resulting petition drive for an ordinance to keep the city from demolishing downtown buildings until it has a comprehensive downtown plan.
Searchers were going through a water cavern that had been an elegant casino before the fire. Many bodies were thought to be under pieces of fallen ceiling.
The date for the building's demolition will be set by the St. Joseph, Mo., company the city hired two weeks ago, Wilden said.
The petition has about 1,000 signatures, said Richard Kershenbaum, one of the organizers of the petition drive. About 3,000 signatures are needed before the petition forces the city to adopt the ordinance or allows residents to vote on the ordinance.
So far, 84 deaths have been confirmed. Hundreds were injured. A source in the Clark County Coroner's office said 40 more people still were injured and their relatives and friends failed to find them.
"We are absolutely sure that as many as 40 more bodies are in the hotel," one source said.
Las Vegas Battalion Chief Levoy Levit said he experienced more bodies to be killed in this search ended.
HUNDREDS OF guests were rescued by helicopters that hovered over the roof of the 25-floor hotel.
"When this is all over and all of the bodies have been counted, we're going to find this will be the biggest hotel fire in the nation's history," Leavitt said.
The biggest fire, the Winecoff Hotel fire in Atlanta, killed 119 people on Dec. 7, 1946.
Leavitt said bulldozers might be used to remove tons of charred debris that tumbled into the basement after the fire spread Friday morning.
Moments after a fireball blasted through the casing described an up elevator shafts with lower levels of the chamber.
earlier yesterday, MGM Chairman of the board Fred Beinninger said at news conference that the company would not accept any bids.
ditional fire-detection equipment would have prevented any of the deaths.
THE HOTEL was built in 1973 and had not been required to install a through sprinkler system, automatic alarms or smoket detectors. Stringent fire detection systems by the county, but were not applied retroactively.
The hotel was equipped only with manual alarms in the hallways. Sprinklers were confined to some restaurants near the casino, the bar and the clubhouse. The time used was used as an exclusive casino for high rollers.
"It's more complicated than just installing smoke detectors," Beminger said. "We're not convinced that smoke alarms would have done much to help the situation.
"As county fire officials have said, this could have happened in any large hotel anywhere in the country."
CLARK COUNTY investigators said the manual alarm system sailed when flames in the building caught fire.
However, Beninger said the breakdown of the fire alert mechanism might have been a blessing in disguise, keeping many guests from running into the halls and suffocating.
Benninger said the fire detection equipment was adequate and met all legal requirements.
However, a copyright story by the San Francisco Examiner said the Nevada state fire marshal had asked for additional prevention measures because of the lavish hotel had opened in December 1973.
In a letter to the Clark County Building Department in Las Vegas, then-Marshal Dan J. Quinn said fireproof coating applied to the structural steel "was of an interior quality."
He also suggested that the building, "if at all possible," be equipped with automatic sorinkers.
SAC changes approach to student-Regent issue
By GENE GEORGE
Staff Reporter
Thursday, the SAC decided its methods of trying to place a plan on the board were not ready. The SAC decided to place a plan on the board.
TOPEKA - The Student Advisory Committee to the Board of Regents Friday decided to form a two-front approach to the issue of getting a student on the Board of Regents.
In other business Friday, the Regents deferred action on a request for more money to cover salary increases for computer center workers, and approved some building projects for the RU
THE SAC HAD sided with the Associated Students of Kansas, a student lobby group, which was pushing for placing a student directly on the Regents.
Tosh persuaded the SAC to propose a compromise that would give student members of the committee a vote, voting members of the committees would get, thus splitting from the ASK position.
But Randy Tosh, Kansas State University student body president, told fellow SAC members Thursday that the committee, formed to pressure the board of reegents, may be pressuring the board too much.
The compromise was sent to the Regents
See REGENTS page 5
DREW TORRES/Kansan staff
A team from the Lawrence Parks and Recreation Department spent all last week stringing lights in the downtown area. Rosanna "Tank" Besser, 331 Indiana St. and Sean Borkland, 543 Walnut St., soar above Massachusetts Street in a cherry picker to hang the Christmas lights.