The San Francisco Disaster.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1985, 23 April 1906, Page 5

The San Francisco Disaster.

.THE CITY NEARLY DESTROYED. *% SCARCITY'- OF^OO^^D LONDON, April 19. The New York Journal’s correspondent states that the first shock m tossed the city like a feather tossed by the wind, making the buildings rock like poplars in a storm. In three minutes the city was a mass of debris. Some reports say that the water front was swept by a tidal wave, and that the shipping was swept up the streets. Many were drowned. There is a frightful stench from the broken gas and sewer mains, causing fears of an epidemic of typhoid. The gasworks blew up with an awful report. The Grand Opera House and Claus Spreckels’s office (the finest building of its kind in Western America) were crushed like egg shells. The Western Union Telegraph Office was wrecked. Many of the millionaire’s mansions were burned. NEW YORK, April 19. The shipping in San Francisco is

less damaged than was reported. The Asiatic quarter is destroyed. The Jesuit Church and College of St. Ignatius, which cost 2,000,000d015, was demolished. The University of California at Berkeley is safe. Four looters were shot. The Mint is re ported to be on fire. One hundred thousand are homeless. Outside help is arriving in all directions. The Cliff 'House and adjacent pleasure

resorts were swept into the sea. The damage to property is estimated at between £80,000,000 and £40,000,000. Tue fire insurance risks amount to £50,000,000. The British offices are the hardest hit. NEW YORK, April 19. Eeuter states that it is impossible to trace individuals in the present confusion, but the Englishmen and Foreigners who were staving at the big hotels are doubtless safe. The casualties so far are confined to the poorer tenement section. General Funtton has telegraphed to President Roosevelt stating that 200,000 people are homeless, and that food and tents are scarce. All the Government buildings have been destroyed. Five persons were killed at Oakland, and there were many fatalities at Santa Cruz. Thirty six people were killed at San Jose, and 270 perished in the Agnew Asylum, near San Jose. At Santa Rosa 200 people were killed, and 10,000 are homeless. NEW yOEK. April 20. General Funston telegraphed on Thursday morning that the city was praotioally destroyed, and that the situation could not be worse. Congress has voted 1,000,000d01s for the relief of the sufferers, and has ordered the distribution of army rations. It is also sending large supplies from Portland and Seattle, and has ordered several warships to co-operate. The havoc extends everywhere within a radius of 100 miles from San Francisco. The Majestic, Orpheus, Columbia, and other theatres collapsed, and were afterwards burned. Many of the richest banks and commercial houses in Montgomery street were burned, and hundreds of people were roasted in the debris. Chinatown and the Japanese quarter are in ruins. The Chinese who were in a fearful state of panic, rushed into the streets beating gongs. They collided with other foreigners, and fierce fighting took place, but the troops suppressed the outbreak at the point of the bayonet. Though many blocks of buildings were dynamited throughout the night the flames overleapt all the obstacles, and the firemen have abandoned all hope of controlling the fire. The fashionable suburbs of Mall Park, Burlinghame, and Nob Hill have been destroyed, and most of the towns around the bay have suffered, The newspapers combined, and managed to issue a single print through the Chronicle Offioe until that office collapsed yesterday. One hundred thousand people passed Wednesday night in the Parks, and probably 300,000 spent Thursday night similarly. Professor Milne, the siesmic expert (stationed in the Isle of Wight) suggests that the earthquake was possibly caused by the earth's swinging a little off its axis, the strain and struggle to get back breaking the earth's crust.