March 29, 1994

A wall of flame engulfed three firefighters as they searched for residents feared trapped in a SoHo apartment building last night, killing one fireman and critically burning the other two, Fire Department officials said. The blaze in a three-story brick apartment house at 62 Watts Street, just off Canal Street, was the first in two years to claim the life of a New York City firefighter.

For a quarter century, Waneta E. Hoyt lived here with the tragedy of her five children's deaths and basked in the comfort of her friends' sympathy. "She'd see a little girl on the street, so pretty and beautiful, and she'd begin to cry," recalls her neighbor, Martha Nestle, who considers her as close as any sister.

Six Palestinians were shot to death by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip today in the most severe violence in the occupied territories since the Hebron massacre a month ago. The slain Palestinians wore uniforms identifying them as belonging to an armed wing of Al Fatah, the mainstream faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization led by Yasir Arafat.

Eugene Ionesco, whose wildly innovative plays, among them "Rhinoceros," "The Bald Soprano" and "The Chairs," overturned conventions of contemporary theater and had a profound effect on a new generation of playwrights, died yesterday in Paris, where he lived. He was 84. His death was announced by the French Cultural Ministry. The cause was not reported.

HALF the Earth is up for grabs in the culmination of a long-running dispute between rich nations and poor ones. At issue is how the high seas will be developed in the decades and centuries to come, most especially their depths. These areas of primal cold and darkness make up some 50 percent of the planet's surface, or nearly seven times that of the Moon's. The vast majority are unexplored. Valuable ores and exotic microbes have recently been discovered on volcanic rifts in the ocean and are being harvested to aid the biotechnology revolution. Some experts believe the deep may eventually yield oil and gas.