TIDAL WAVE

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 December 1945, Page 8

TIDAL WAVE

DISASTER IN INDIA LONDON, December 4. ! Four thousand people are believed to have been killed and 40,00(1 made homeless by the tidal wave which | struck a 100-mile coastal belt west of ■ Karachi on November 28. This news I was brought by a party of Congress i Party relief workers who have just | returned to Karachi from the scene i| of the disaster. The party’s report said that two villages were wiped ? out and seven others suffered heavy casualties. One vanished with the iii'll on which it was standing. The coast is now strewn with wreckage, with corpses being washed up daily. It was dark when the tidal wave struck on November 28, which added 1 horror to the confusion. Thousands of pebbles shot into the air like vol- !| leys of bullets. Villagers snatched at tree-tops as they were tossed about i; in the mighty rush of water. Some who took refuge in boats and on rafts were swept far out to sea. Many were killed while asleep. An eye- ) witness said that the first, sign was when the sky in the direction of the 1 sea changed to a reddish colour about 3 a.m., after which a column of fire 5 shot up from the water. There was a ’ deafening crash and, before the [ alarm could be given, the gigantic i wave rushed towards the coast. TWO NEW~ISLETS. ' KARACHI, Dec. 5. Two bare granite-coloured rocky islets appeared in the Arabian Sea about 180 miles off the coast near Karachi after the earthquake tidal 1 wave. The islands are oval-shaped and about three miles apart. They are one and a half .square miles in area. The Royal Indian naval vessel, Hindustan, reported their position. The Hindustan was the first relief ship to reach the areas devastated by the tidal wave.