This Day In 1970's History: Saturday February 14, 1981
- A disco fire in Dublin that killed at least 49 persons will be investigated by the government. The disco building, in Dublin's Artane section, was destroyed by flames that engulfed it in a few minutes, according to survivors. About 800 young people were attending a dance competition. At least 129 were injured. [New York Times]
- Space shuttle Columbia is ready for a critical ground test at Cape Canaveral that will put it through all the contingencies it will face in its maiden orbital voyage, now scheduled for early April. The test is expected to begin tomorrow night, with all systems activated and provided with fuel. [New York Times]
- Taxpayers should pay the $1 billion it will cost to decontaminate the highly radioactive reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, a committee has recommended to President Reagan. The Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee, an advisory panel established by the Carter administration, thus entered the debate over who should the bear the financial responsiblility for the worst accident in the nation's nuclear industry. [New York Times]
- Other factors beside the lack of rain have contributed to the current water shortage in the Northeast. In 1975, when there was abundant rainfall in the region, a government report
warned that the gap between supply and demand was narrowing and that shortages could develop from the Virginia tidewater to New England. A principal cause of the current shortage, water specialists say, is that consumption per person, like energy use, is extraordinarily high compared with that of other industrial nations. [New York Times]
- Moscow Is not arming leftist guerrillas in El Salvador, the Soviet Embassy's second-ranking diplomat in Washington said, but the diplomat, Vladilen Vasev, acknowledged that the Soviet Union sent arms to Cuba and their being sent on to other countries. [New York Times]
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