EARTHQUAKE DISASTER

Evening Star, Issue 21620, 16 January 1934, Page 7

EARTHQUAKE DISASTER

INDIAN TOWNS DAMAGED DARJEELING PARTLY WRECKED MANY PEOPLE KILLED AND INJURED Frew Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. CALCUTTA, January 15. (Received January 16, at 10 a.m.) An earthquake was felt throughout India following two days’ phenomenal floods and the coldest spell for half a century. , Darjeeling was partially wrecked 1 , violent shocks resulting in buildings and houses collapsing, including a portion of Government House. Tons of debris crashed down the hillsides, The panic-stricken bill people fled crying upon their mountain god in their terror. Many were killed and injured. Meagre reports are to hand. Darjeeling, which is built on rock, experienced the full force of the disturbance. Calcutta is built on mud, and luckily escaped. A dramatic incident in the Calcutta High Court occurred while the death sentence was being confirmed on a terrorist. The judge quitted the bench and the whole court dashed into the street.

Extensive damage was done at Bihar. The High Court and the general hospital collapsed at Patna; There were nine deaths at Patna and nine at Gaya. The Jamalpur railway station, on the East Indian Railway, collapsed* and several people were killed, including women and children. One English woman was killed.

Tremors , were reported in several centres in India last week, principally in. Ramnad, in the Madras district, and in Sind. The former occurred at night. Houses collapsed, ' pedestrians were knocked down, and sleepers were flung from their beds.

PANIC IN CALCUTTA NO CASUALTIES REPORTED CALCUTTA, January 15. (Received January 16, at 10.5 a.m.) Calcutta was a city of panic for two minutes at 2.16 this afternoon, when the severest earthquake shock in living memory drove all the inhabitants into the streets. There was a rush for the open spaces in the middle of the city. Houses rocked and swayed, and thousands cracked. There were no casualties. There were two distinct shocks, one of 20sec and one of lOOsec. The earthquake lasted in all eight minutes. The oscillation was circular in movement, and the pulsations were sixty to the minute.

The seismographs at the Calcutta observatory were 'smashed by the shock. The epicentre is reported to be in Assam, 200 miles north of Calcutta in a sparsely inhabited district.

CENTRE OF DISTURBANCE ESCAPED ONLY SLIGHT TREMORS IN BOMBAY (British Official: Wireless.) RUGBY, January 15, (Received January 16, at noon.) In Calcutta no one was seriously injured. At Jamalpur (Bengal) the station buildings collapsed, killing the wife and children of the European manager of the railway workshops, and the wife of the local medical officer. ■ Several buildings also collapsed, in Benares and Lucknow, and in towns in the United Provinces.

The tremors were only slightly felt in Bombay. It is believed that India escaped the centre of the disturbance, which was recorded on the seismographs in Britain as one of exceptional severity.