EARTHQUAKE MASSACRES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 127, 26 November 1923, Page 7

EARTHQUAKE MASSACRES

SLAUGHTER OF KOREANS A SHOCKING NARRATIVE. (UNHID PHIS ASSOCIATION.—COPIRIGBT.) (Received 26th November, 9 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. 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 terrorstricken and order had not been restored. Most of the outrages were com- ' mitted 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 police estimate that 432 Koreans were killed in lhe affected area, including 150 in Yokohama. > There is evidence, however, that some of tho 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 proved his lie by dying a violent death. At Fujioka, seventeen Koreans took refuge in the police station. The mob overcame the police and chased the refugees to the roof of the building, where they 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-three Koreans to a place of safety when the mob surrounded ttieni 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. . , ■