HOMES SWEPT TO SEA

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 148, 19 December 1929, Page 8

HOMES SWEPT TO SEA

TIDAL WAVE AFTER 'QUAKE

NEWFOUNDLAND DISASTER

(From "The Post's" Representative.) VANCOUVER, 27th November.

Deeds of heroism, self-sacrifice, and miraculous escape during the fifteen minutes when, early in tho morning, a tidal wave, caused by a huge earthquake under tho Atlantic, swept twentyfour souls to eternity on the southeastern shore of Newfoundland, are being revealed with the initiation of relief by the Canadian Bed Cross. So short was the notice that the telephone operator at the little settlement jjf Burin was unable to give the alarm She escaped with her life as the telephone office was swept into the sea. As the incoming sea reached its height, houses were flung back with succeeding .waves two or three times. Then, as the water receded, they went out to sea with the speed of a steamer. The story of the rescue of a baby by a Newfoundland dog occupies a little niche by itself in the record. This was at Port-au-Bras, where nine people were lost. The dog plunged into the sea as the house. waß swept away carrying his master, wife, and baby girl. Tho dog was sighted swimming toward the shore, the baby held hig-h out of the water. Dumping it on the shore, where willing hands revived it tho dog dashed back into the water reaching the house, only to be crushed when it collapsed. Both his master and mistress also perished. A TRAGIC SIGHT. The tragic sight of a woman with a amp standing in the window of her house as it was carried out to sea was a spectacle that will long remain memorable in a chapter of unforgettable incidents. Seeing the incoming flood, a man rushed to save his family. His path was blocked by another house floating by. Before his eyes, his house passed by him, his wife and children in it. He was too late to save them, and the house and inmates were swallowed up One man placed his wife on his back' and with a child under each arm, waited until his house was swept back on the crest of the wave. He jumped to safety as his house was swept out for the last time. Captain Hollitt, of Burin, said: "I had just finished my meal, in company with the mate of the Daisy, when the wavo hit Burin. My house is forty feet above sea level, and the water entered the first floor to a depth of three feet. I rushed out and saw the harbour filled with houses and wreckage. The store of the Hon. C. A. Bartlett, member of the Legislative Council, which was sixty feet long by forty feet wide, was lifted from its concrete foundation and carried inland for a distance of a quarter of a mile. It was stocked with winter provisions and supplies, yet not a thing was damaged. My own store was destroyed and the stock scattered all over the harbour. Eight houses were swept away." THE DEATH ROLL. "The sea cut a hole five feet deep and ten feet wide through a solid wall of bluestone, and created a harbour where there had not been one," said Father Miller, Roman Catholic priest, who had many narrow escapes as he ran from place to place, rendering assistance. . s

The deaths were: Lamalin, 1; Point au Gaul, 8; Taylor's Bay, 4; Lord's Cove, i) Kelly's Cove, 2; Port au Bras,

The little peninsula, a narrow outpost of Southern Newfoundland,' was in a direct line with the epicentre of the break in the Fundian Fault which shook the Olyiiipio»6so miles out at sea making the officers believe the ship had struck a submerged wreck.