HUGE LANDSLIDE

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 55, 29 November 1937, Page 11

HUGE LANDSLIDE

Hillside Crashes Down At

Los Angeles

MUCH DAMAGE CAUSED By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. (Received November 28, 7.30 p.m.) Los Angeles, November 27. A landslide which three weeks ago began moving an inch daily, carrying with it a hillside comprising two city .squares, and threatening a row of buildings, a highway viaduct, and the Los Angeles river beds, to-day rumbled 13J inches onward, and badly frightened the neighbouring inhabitants, despite the roping-off of the endangered district. Millions of tons of earth and stone threaten to cover a wide area, and today’s movement precipitated rocks the size of automobiles, causing an earth-quake-like tremor and covering manystreets with deep muddy slush. Several movie studios had day and night camera crews posted to film the landslide when it became fully loosened. which was expected at any moment. The entire hill, estimated at three million tons of debris, finally split off in two sections during the night, and crashed down, covering the riverside drive and cutting off the electric power and destroying watermains, but stopping at the doorsteps of the endangered buildings. A sheer cliff 150 feet high remains where the hill was torn off from the terrain. Thousands of spectators viewed the spectacle, which hundreds of police were guarding. Crowds during the day watched rocks, earth and trees tumbling down tlie mountainside.

Geologists fear a second avalanche more serious than the first. The damage so far is estimated at 200,000 dollars. A further collapse is virtually certain to destroy a bridge, the cost of which was 3,000,000 dollars.