CONDITIONS AT QUETTA

Evening Star, Issue 22047, 5 June 1935, Page 9

CONDITIONS AT QUETTA

CARING FOR THE SURVIVORS BRITISH ACTIVITY (British Official Wireless.) Bress Association —By Telegraph—Copyright RUGBY, June 4. (Received Juno 5, at noon.) An India Office communication states that although there may be some chance of further shocks at Quetta this need not cause undue alarm, as all precautions have been taken to minimise the danger to the survivors. They are being accommodated in the open. All the British survivors are devoting themselves completely to relief work, their efforts being reinforced by a constant stream of assistance from outside. The greater ipnrt of the Quetta cantonment was either intact or only slightly damaged. This applied also to the Staff College, and to the military hospitals and the barracks of the British and Indian troops and their families. The injured under treatment in the military hospitals are : —British ; 79 men, 73 women, and three children. Indians: 3,230. APPALLING DEATH ROLL SCENES OF DEVASTATION LONDON, June 4. (Received June 5, at 2 p.m.) The special correspondent of ‘ The Times,’ visiting Quetta, says: “ Quetta is a place of utter desolation. Authoritative circles fear that the death roll in the district will aggregate 46,000. From Mastung to Kalat, a distance of eighty miles, every village was demolished. Most of the villages in the Kalat State were obliterated. “ The death roll at Quetta would have been far greater but for the untiring efforts of rescuers, chiefly British troops, who within two hours of the city’s crashing to ruin dug ou.t 10,500 alive. Sappers, wearing gas-resisting masks owing to the stench of corpses, are co-operating with tanks in clearing the ruins, disclosing grim sights of human bodies crushed amid furniture.” —London ‘ Times ’ Cable. EVACUATION continues TEN THOUSAND CASUALTIES IN MASTUNG DISTRICT. (Received June 5, at 12.35 p.m.) QUETTA, June 4. The evacuation of refugees from Que.tta continues, and owing to further severe shocks there are heavy demands on the railway for transport. Eight thousand injured were treated at the various hospitals. There were 10,000 casualties in the Mastung district, including 2,000 dead in the town.

HEW ZEALAND'S SYMPATHY [Per United Press Association.] AUCKLAND. June 5. The Governor-General, Viscount Galway, sent a message to the Viceroy of India saying that the Government and people of New Zealand were most distressed to learn of the earthquake and the resulting severe loss of life in British Baluchistan, and wished to convey their heartfelt sympathy with the inhabitants in the tragic disaster which had overtaken them. His Excellency to-day received a reply expressing gratitude for the New Zealand message, and adding: “ The disaster has proved to be worse than at first was feared, and the loss of life is tragically heavy.”