FIRST REPORTS

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 128, 1 June 1935, Page 9

FIRST REPORTS

WHOLE CITY DESTROYED

HEAVY DEATH-ROLL

LONDON, May 31.

Quetta, the capital: of British Baluchistan, was severely rocked by an earthquake. It is believed that many were killed, including Government and railway officials in the areas devastated. Sir Alexander Cater, the Governor,, telephoned the Punjab Government to rush nurses and doctors to the assistance of the authorities. A message received at 1.15 a.m. today states that in Quetta the casualties include .43 members of the Royal Air Force. The whole city is destroyed. The telegraph lines are dislocated. The shocks, varying in intensity, lasted between 30 and 60 seconds. All buildings on the countryside between Quetta and Kalat were razed. It is reported that i our-fifths 'of the population were killed. Quetta, capital of British Baluchistan, also gives its name to a district. It rose to prominence in 1876 when Sir Robert Sandeman founded a residency there. The name is a variation of a word meaning fortress. Quetta is the southernmost point of the line of frontier posts and system of strategic railways on. the north-western frontier of India. It forms the headquarters of a division of the Western Command. The railway was built in 1879. The cantonment and civil station of Quetta stand on an open plain about 5500 feet above sea level, with a ring of mountains which overlook them from 11,000 feet. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century Quetta grew from a group of mud buildings with a dilapidated bazaar and a few scattered remnants of neglected orchard cultivation into a strong fortress and one of the most popular stations o£ the Indian Army. The Indian Staff College was opened there in 1907, and the city became the market of "Western Afghanistan, Eastern Persia, and much of Central Asia, including a remarkable fruit trade in European fruits from Kandahar. The population of town and^ cantonment in 1921 was 49,000. The district of Quetta has an area of 5127, square miles.