EARTHQUAKE DESTROYS A MEXICAN TOWN. .

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 113, 12 May 1908, Page 2

EARTHQUAKE DESTROYS A MEXICAN TOWN. .

FIRE BURNING IN RUINS.

(By"Majl.)

CIJY OF MEXICO, March 27.

Governor Damian Flores, Chief Executive of the State of Guerrero, who. is at. present in this city, at nine o'clock this evening received the first official advices from the town of Chilapa, said to have been destroyed l in the heavy earthquake shock which occurred last night. The message to the governor says that, although a number of buildings of the town were levelled to the ground, no lives were lost. The police quarters and the Mayor's office were destroyed and the gaol badly damaged. Great fissures were made in the streets and open -fields. In the neighbouring town of Ometepec the gaol was destroyed and thirty prisoners made their escape. Troops are guarding the public buildings that are standing in Cmiapa, but perfect order prevails.

Later returns from Chilapa show howftrsr, that the dispatch received by Governor Flores was ultra, conservative. The towji was practically d though no lives were lost. Most of the. buildings that vfere levelled were residences.

Early to-day, "El Imparcial,"' the Government organ, received a dispatch from its correspondent in the town of Chiiaparcingow, saying that the town of Chilapa, thirty miles distant from the place, was totally destroyed by the earthquake, and that fire broke out in the ruins and was completing the work of destruction. The people of the town were terrorised, and many were prayng in the open plazas and in the fields adjoining the town. Some hours later the s." • eorrejsponclent sent the following -t; "Later returns confirm my firs. iui. Chilapa has been shaken to ti:e earth, and reduced to ashes." ■

[ Chilapa has a population of about 15,000 people, and is the largest town in the State of Guerrero. To reach the place it is necessary to travel one day by, train and then four days over, a rough mountain trail on horseback. QUAKES IN OTHER SECTIONS. Reports coming in from various- points in the republic show that the quake was felt over a very wide area, but that in no-place s with.the possible'exception of Chilapa, was there a considerable loss of life or property. Thirty : f'our shocks have bqen recorded during the past 24 hours by the seismograph at the national observatory at Tabuyaca. Most of these shocks, however, were imperceptible ejc. eppt tp the delicate needle of the instrument.

Mrs. Emma Jcanneit Dorrille, an American, lost her life in a panic, in the.Tiburcio Theatre, in the city of Vera Cruz, which 'followed the earthquake of "last night. News of the panic and the ojne. death whicL followed reached tbie cjty to-nigit. Hfhefl the quajje began the audifjjce rushed for the exits, and nuuiy persons were severely bruised, but no one eeriovsly injured. '.'lrs. DorviUe drortped dead from fright. '^^ In this, city a gendarme was killed, fifteen persons were slightly, and one. fatally injured by falling beams and walls. All of theae belonged to the workjnt. classes. ' Ye