RUINS OF CORINTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 July 1928, Page 2

RUINS OF CORINTH

GREECE’S WORST CATACLYSM.

Graphic details of the scenes in Corinth after the recent earthquake in Greece were supplied by Mr C ,J. Ketchum to the “Daily Express.” Telegraphing on May 5, he said : — “I reached the Peloponnese to-day to find a terror-stricken people emerging from the greatest cataclysm that has ever visited this country. Forty towns and village of the peninsula have been completely wiped out, while this famous city itself is almost irreparably destroyed. So thorough, indeed, has been the havoc wrought along the chores of the Corinthian Gulf that the authorities actually express the hope that the tremors of the last few days will continue in order to assist them in the task of demolition. “The scenes this morning in Corinth, where more than 20,000 people are homeless, were reminiscent of the days five years ago in Eastern Thrace, when thousands of terrified refugees from Smyrna swept down on the country in their flight from the Turkish massacres in Asia Minor

“The whole populace are living —if one can call it living—amid the wreckage in the streets, and will continue to do so for months to come. For two nights there was not so much as a candlelight in the city, for the electricity had failed and the place was plunged in black darkness, relieved only When the warships in the harbour answered the summons to play their searchlights on the foreshore. Then for two days, and again last night, when the latest disturbance was felt, rain fell heavily, drenching the miserable people in their, hutments. There’ is fortunately no further scarcity of food, for the *" Greek Government dealt with this phase of the emergency with promptitude, > but suffering in other directions is acute. Medical supplies must be replenished, and even though hundreds of wooden structures are springing up as swiftly as timber’ can be brought here, entire families are cramped in single tents or in tiny shelters made from carpets and linoleum.

“Corinth as it is, approached from the hills resembles nothing so much as a vast army encampment during the war. Along the brown sand beaches of the Corinthian Bay hundreds of white bell tents are erecTeß, row on row in military uniformity. 1 Nearer the water women and children squat round all sorts of improvised furniture, waiting for the hour* when they may make their* way to the food kitchens for the mid-day meal. But it is when one descends to the city tlhat one realises the full extent of the calamity. There is nothing left of what was formerly the main business thoroughfare Churches,, banks and restaurants have been all reduced to piles of broken masonry. “I went ,to see historic St. Paul’s Cathedral, built not far from the centre of the town, on the spot where it is said St. Paul remained for nearly two years before he wrote his two Epistles to the Corinthians. I found one wall standing, in the shadow of which in the open churchyard twenty or thirty people were coiled up in beds asleep. Further down in the town, in a peaceful grove of green date palms, there was a Red Cross hospital under canvas, where volunteer nurses were tending the wounded. Almost the entire male populace are engaged in the construction of wooden hutments. These, under the Government’s scheme of relief, will be placed at the disposal of the people for housing purposes until it is decided whether or not the city shall be rebuilt.

“This is the third severe earthquake on the peninsula, the last, in 1858, having destroyed the ancient city of Corinth, where the celebrated Temple of Aphrodite, with its 10,000 priestesses, attracted worshippers from all parts of the world. No decision on its rebuilding question will be arrived at by the Government until there has been a conference of the leading European geologists and seismologists, but meanwhile there has been an official grant of £500,000 for the work of temporary reconstruction. The writer goes on to say: “Each day brings with it fresh disturbances, but the real danger to the lives of the people here is now regarded as past. A heavy toll of death was averted by the providential warning of less severe tremors, ■which preceded the first calamitous shock. People were thus given a chance to flee to the seaside or other places of safety, and, though many were killed, thousands of others, who might easily have been caught in their beds, escaped unhurt

BRITISH. NAVY’S ASSISTANCE. “One side of, the whole catastrophe that will never be forgotten in Greece was the magnificent performance of the British Navy. Within 24 hours of the first serious shock, before there was forthcoming even a sign of assistance from Athens or any part of Greece beyond the afflicted peninsula, two British warships from Malta —the destroyer Eagle, under the command of Captain B. M. Money, and the seaplane carrier Stuart, under Captain Legge —mercifully steamed up the bay. “They were laden with more than 500 tents, several thousand blankets, food and medical supplies, and within an hour this relief was being distributed to the neediest cases ashore.

“Archbishop Demaskinos, leader of the Greek Orthodox Church, himself one of the heroes of the disaster,, and Lieutenant A .A. Bachas, of the Greek Navy, who is acting .captain of the port, described the way in which the British bluejackets hurled themselves into the task of succouring the wounded and distressed Officers and men alike saved scores of lives. They carried half-crazed women and children to safety, flung themselves into buildings where there was grave danger from falling walls, and completed the destruction before more damage was done. They went on coolly erecting tents for the Red Cross while the ground trembled beneath their feet, and then went out in search of the more seriously-wounded in order to place them under medical care. “Three French cruisers, under the French Admiral Serr, and three Italian warships, under an Italian admiral, have since followed the British example, but the British warships, in the words of the Greek archbishop, ‘more than saved the day.’ Our officers, I understand, have ben recommended for the highest decorations in the gift of the Greek Government.

“1 was taken by the archbishop to one of the central food kitchens. Four women in white, with straw hats, made with the widest brims I have ever seen, to protect them from the sun, worked diligently amid mountains of grey debris round an enormous cooking stove. They had come to Corinth, at the news of the first upheaval, and,

living in modest tents erected in the shadow of a broken building, unheeding the hourly menace to their own lives, were ‘waiting on’ 3000 refugees a day.”