1000 FEARED DEAD IN EARTHQUAKE

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27452, 11 September 1954, Page 7

1000 FEARED DEAD IN EARTHQUAKE

Town In Algeria Razed By 12-Second Shock

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11.30 p.m.) ORLEANSVILLE (Algeria), September 10. Rescue workers toiled throughout the night in earthquake-shattered Orleansville, where 1000 persona are feared dead after a 12-second earthquake yesterday. Already nearly 500 bodies have been counted sinee the search began, and at least as many again are believed dead. The injured, many of whom are suffering from fractured skulls caused by falling masonry, are believed to exceed 50 —about 1000 in Orleansville and the rest in the shattered districts nearby.

France has declared today a day of national mourning for the victims.

A constant watch was kept last night on the 160 ft wall of the mighty Fodda river dam, which would send millions of gallons of water flooding the ravaged area if it broke. The dam was cracked by the shock, but engineers hurriedly repaired the breach.

Another smaller dam, the Lamartine, collapsed in the earthquake, killing 200 and inundating the surrounding area,

The earthquake centred on Orleansville, a modern French town of 32,000 inhabitants, but small towns and villages in about a 60-mile radius were devastated and some completely destroyed. The earthquake struck at 1 a.m. and all communications were cut; but as soon as news of the disaster became known, troops, blood donors, and doctors were rushed to Orleansville, which is about 110 miles south-west of Algiers. All planes were mobilised to take the injured to Algiers. Eye-Witnesses’ Accounts Eye-witnesses in Orleansville have given this description of the worst earthquake the African continent is believed to have ever had: The whole population was asleep when a great shudder ran through the town. Wide fissures opened in the streets and homes. Nine-storey blocks of flats and solid public buildings folded up. One of the first to go was the ancient fifth-century Christian cathedral, built by the Emperor Constantine and the oldest shrine in Africa. With a horrible rumbling it crashed in the market place. Underground gas pipes were thrown up above . the lurching soil, splitting and throwing out streams of gas, which caught alight and sent flames roaring into nearby houses. Men, women, and children rushed screaming from their beds, many naked or in scanty night clothes. They scrambled in panic through the littered streets, fighting in their anxiety to reach the safety of the open fields outside the city’s walls. Old women were seen scrambling at the rubble in vain attempts to reach their families, trapped beneath. . Flames licking the devastated buildings, the rumble of collapsing masonry, and the anguished cries of the fleeing population, turned the night into one of horror.

As dawn broke over the devastation, the first Army lorries bringing aid from the outside, rumbled into the town. Most of the population, Algerian and French alike, were camped in miserable huddles on the outskirts. A few families, crazy with anguish, had to be forcibly removed from the shells of their former homes.

Algeria was severely shaken by an earthquake in 1946 when between 250 and 300 persons died in violent shocks which devastated 450 square miles of the Department of Constantine, about 300 miles east of Orleansville. Lord Ismay, Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, today offered the French Government “all possible aid” from N.A.T.O. if necessary in the Algerian earthquake. The French Minister of the Interior (Mr Francois Mitterand) has earmarked a sum of 15.000,000 francs for the earthquake victims.