AN EARTHQUAKE FELT AT SEA

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21352, 20 December 1934, Page 10

AN EARTHQUAKE FELT AT SEA

♦ LINER QUIVERS FROM STEM TO STERN PASSENGERS DESCRIBE THEIR STRANGE EXPERIENCE (PRISS ASSOCIATION TILECHAM.) AUCKLAND, December 19. A submarine disturbance, thought to be connected with an earthquake in South America, violently shook the New Zealand Shipping Company's motor-liner Rangitata the day af t<?r she cleared the -Panama Canal, en route from London to Auckland'. The liner arrived at Auckland today, and the passengers described the uncanny experience. The ship they said, quivered from stem to stern for about 15 or 30 seconds in a manner that made it seem that she was being shaken from different directions at the same time, then she ploughed on steadily through the calm and untroubled seas. The disturbance occurred about seven o clock in the evening, when most of the passengers were preparing for dinner. One man said he was in a smoke room having a cocktail before dinner, and the sudden violent trembling of the ship "would have spilled his drink if he had not hastily swallowed it."

Captain Hunter, commander of the Rangitata, said the liner was travelling at her normal speed. The weather was fine, and the sea calm Suddenly, without any warning, and with nothing to disturb appreciably the surface of the ocean, the ship shook convulsively. There was deep water in the vicinity, and there was nothing in the peculiar motion to suggest that the ship had struck a whale or any submerged obstacle. Later reports were received by wireless stating that a severe earthquake had been experienced at San Salvador and Guatemala. It was thought that the disturbance experienced by the liner was almost certainly connected with this earthquake.