COMPILING JAPAN’S HUGE DEATH ROLL

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LII, Issue 8392, 14 September 1923, Page 3

COMPILING JAPAN’S HUGE DEATH ROLL

disease claims many VIC i IMS Press Assoc. Uy Tel. Copyright Anst.—N.Z. Cable Assoc, Rec Sept. 14, morning . Osaka, Sept, 12 What is reported to be an official compilation of the earthquake casualties estimates the dead, injured and missing at 1,356,000; also 316,000 houses destroyed. The Government has decided to appropriate 180 million dollars for relief and reconstruction, but is still opposed to the floating of d foreign loan for that purpose. Deaths from disease in Tokio and environs are estimated at 150,000. Reactional earthquakes continue, but have fallen to onlv twenty daily. Instances where groups of a hundred or more bodies have been .found at various spots by the sentry are prevalent. The American marines who landed at Tokio are erecting a bakery, and a motor repair shop at the American Embassy to promote relief and transportation. The plight of the survivors in Tokio is pitiable. Heavy rain is adding to the general misery. Thousands of homeless, destitute Japanese are still thronging the public parks ealing the flesh still on the bones of such animals as they find, raking the ruins of the Zoological gardens, or eating the fish taken from the park ponds.

SURVIVORS SENSATIONAL STORY. Rec. Sept. 14, 9.20 a.m. Osaka, Sept. 13. Mi Cox, of Adelaide, one of the refugees, tells a sensational story. When the earthquake started he jumped out of an. open window of a house. Two others in the building were killed, one of them being duel Madset, a Danish artist on the staff ot the London Graphic. When the quake started, the sea recked, baring the bottom for half a mile; then it returned as a roaring wave twenty five feet high. The cliff, five hundred feet high, toppled on to the heads of the people. He saw fishing boats, houses and hundreds of people, who were merry-making a few mi nines before, swept out to sea. According to the latest report 84,000 dead bodies have been recovered 1 in Tokiu, and some of the most densely occupied sections are still unexplor- . ed. The survivors tell stories'of p€o pie trapped in the crumbling buildings singing; folk songs of Japan, while they unflinchingly awaited certain death. The casualties at the cinemas was especially heavy.