KOREANS LYNCHED

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 53, 27 November 1923, Page 7

KOREANS LYNCHED

AFTER EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN RUMOURS OF MALIGN PLOTS EVIDENCE OF LOOTING AND OUTRAGES Hr TEr.EGß.Anr— Press Association. Copyright. Sydney, November 26. The Sydney “Morning Herald’s” special commissioner in Japan supplies shocking details of the massacre of Koreans during the few days following the earthquake, when the people were terror-stricken and order had not been restored. Most of the outrages were committed by the Japanese young men’s associations, the members of which were maddened by rumours that malcontent Koreans and Socialists were engaged in malign plots. The nolice estimate that 432 Koreans were killed in the affected areas, including 150 in Yokohama. There is evidence, however, that some of the Koreans were engaged in looting, and in one case outraged and murdered 'a young Japanese woman. One man was caught with thirty grains of arsenic among his loot. He declared that it was only salt, and was made to swallow it, and 1 proved his lie bv dying a violent death. At Fuiioka, seventeen Koreans took refuge in the police station. The mob overcame the police and chased the refugees to the roof of the building, where thev were all speared or shot to death. At Yokohama five Koreans and some Japanese, caught in the act of incendiarism. were lynched on the spot. Later thirty more Koreans were lynched.

At Kumagaya, the police were escorting forty-five Koreans to a place of safetv when the mob surrounded them under the belief that they were insurgents, and instantly killed ten. The remaining thirty-three attempted to escape, but were chased and were all murdered. —Press Assn.