TERRIBLE ORDEAL

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 66, 14 September 1929, Page 24

TERRIBLE ORDEAL

A SHIP'S SURVIVOR

The harrowing tale -of a seaman who drifted for seven hours in the Pacific Ocean surrounded by the floating corpses, of his comrades was told to-day by the lone survivor of tho Chilean naval transport Abtao, which sank recently with a loss of forty-two men.

The survivor, Enrique Aranda, told his strange tale partly to the officials at Valparaiso and partly to seamen ou tho steamer Imperial, which rushed to the rescue of the sinking ship on receipt of S.O.S. signals, only to arrive after jih'e Abtao had sunk. The trouble 'on..the Abtao began when the coal on board began to shift with the storm. Water began to come in^ when the ship listed over so far that there was no protection from the waves.

The crew: worked in desperation. They tried their, utmost to pump the water out, and did everything humanly possible to get the ship back into the right position.

"When the captain, after a terrific struggle, ■ saw that ; the righting of the ship was an impossible task, he ordered the crew to don lifebelts and take to their- stations. The captain went to his bridge without a belt. "At that moment, just when the captain mounted his bridge, a.-" great wave broke the steering gear and swept the deck of all the cargo stored there. A second mountainous wave struck the Abtao a few moments later, turning her so far over that the funnel became submerged and the keel came out of tho water.

"I was hurled into tho sea. When 1 came to the surface tho Abtao had disappeared from sight. Finding, some floating oars I tied them together with a cord to form a triangle. All this was very difficult. I placed myself in the centre of tho triangle. Another member of the crew floated close enough to me to take hold of the oars, but a huge wave came and swept him away. Birds, which pick men's eyes,,began to fly oyer me. But I was able to scare them away, thanks to the fact that there were corpses around me. Once I felt an enormous thing pass under my feet, but it only touched the oars and disappeared."