MANY KILLED

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 1, 1 July 1926, Page 9

MANY KILLED

EARTHQUAKE IN SUMATRA

STONE BUILDINGS COLLAPSE

POPULATION TAKES TO TENTS.

{United Prem Association.—Copyright.)

(Reuters Telegram.)

WELTEVREDEN (Java), 30th June.

Advices from Padang and Fort Dc Kock report a very heavy earthquake. Several shops have collapsed,! and one person has been killed and two wounded. At Soenbieboeloe seventeen are dead. Almost all the buildings in Padangpandjang • collapsed. More than a hundred were killed, and many were wounded. There are some Europeans amongst the dead. A • military dispensary chemist, who felt the shock, entered a room to save a child, and on returning was killed by a falling wall. The child and its mother narrowly escaped. Solok was severely.' shaken, aiid fifteen are reported to have been killed there. Later. A message from Padang states that it is difficult to estimate the number of the dead in the Padangpandjang catastrophe. Happening as it did on market day, many from the suburbs were in town, moreover many are under the debris, Bis estimated that twenty Chinese and fifty native inhabitants are dead. Practically all the stone buildings collapsed. The population is camping in tents, fearing new shocks. An official report from Solok states that thirteen are dead and eight injured. Several market buildings collapsed. A column of fire was seen above Talang volcano.

Padang, the capital of Sumatra, is on the west coast at the -foot of a range of high mountains including several volcanoes. Fort dc Kock and Solok are situated in the mountains. The earthquake apparently was confined to a small area in the /icinity of Padang. Talang Volcano is ,8343 feet high.