EIGHT DIE IN LANDSLIDE PORTUGUESE PLOT

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28890, 9 May 1959, Page 13

EIGHT DIE IN LANDSLIDE

PORTUGUESE PLOT

Houses Crushed Under Rubble

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) TRQMSOE (North Norway). May 8. Fishermen and farmers toiled all night in driving sleet and snow among tons of sodden earth, boulders and the splintered ruins of two wooden houses to reach eight people buried when a landslide struck the little hamlet of Sokkelvik last night. Two more houses, which carried eight people to safety when the rushing mass of earth knocked them into the fiord, were floating “at anchor” on the shore. Earlier today, the rescue gangs found the body of 90-year-old Mrs Johanna Jacobsen. Mr Roald Johansen, police chief in Tromsoe, about 45 miles away, said the work would go on with all available help, but with “little hope” of finding anyone alive. The tragedy struck a single family. The four brothers, Alfred, Sigvart, Sverre and Rochmann Jacobsen, were al! at home with their families when the landslide struck about 9 o’clock last night. Three other houses of the tiny hamlet were left standing as the bank crashed down.

Delgado Said To Be Member

LISBON, May 7. The Portuguese Minister of Internal Affairs, Colonel Arnaldo Schulz, today linked General Humberto Delgado, the unsuccessful Opposition candidate in the last presidential election, with a plot he said had been discovered to overthrow the Salazar Government.

General Delgado sought refuge in the Brazilian Embassy after the election, and last month he was granted asylum in Brazil. He was placed on the retired list after his defeat in the elections, and accused of “misdemeanours” during the campaign and of signing subversive leaflets. In the elections he opposed Rear-Admiral Americo Tomas, who was backed by the Government of Dr. Salazar, Prime Minister of Portugal since 1932. General Delgado, a former friend and supporter of Dr. Salazar, was the first Opposition candidate to see a presidential election through to the finish since IP2B.

Colonel Schulz said of the plot: “As well as Communist inspiration, there was the influence of political fanaticism created by the so-called Opposition during the electoral campaign.” The Minister disclosed no names of those involved in the incident, but last March a Government spokesman, in response to questions about rumours of arrests, identified two Army majors, a Roman Catholic priest, and a Roman Catholic lay leader, British United Press said.