'Thus' was omitted before 'destroying'; 'thereby', 'making'.
Am I right or wrong?
***** NOT A TEACHER *****
Great question!
I will refrain from giving my opinion, for it might be wrong.
But I am 99.99% confident about the following:
"The train fell off the bridge,
killing 100 people."
Surely one would refrain from saying: "Killing 100 people, the train fell off the bridge." That would seem to mean that the train killed 100 people.
In fact, it was the ACT of falling off the bridge that killed 100 people.
Thus, one could, indeed, say: "The train fell off the bridge,
thus killing 100 people."
Or: "The train fell off the bridge, an act that killed 100 people."
As Professor Curme might say, "killing 100 people" does not actually modify anything. (As I said, it cannot modify "train," for the train did not kill the 100 people.) The great professor gives these examples:
"He mistook me for a friend, so that he caused me some embarrassment."
"He mistook me for a friend, causing me some embarrassment."
"He mistook me for a friend, thus causing me some embarrassment."
The great scholar says that the words after the comma "do not in any way modify the meaning of the principal proposition [statement]."
In plain English, it means -- I think -- that we are actually dealing with two propositions: "He mistook me for a friend, and it caused me some embarrassment."
Source: George Oliver Curme,
A Grammar of the English Language, Vol. II, 1931, page 293.