LATE NEWS 100 MISSING IN RUINS OF VILLAGE

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 September 1950, Page 5

LATE NEWS 100 MISSING IN RUINS OF VILLAGE

STOCKHOLM, Sept. 29 (Rec. 1 p.m.). —More than 100 persons are missing in Suate tonight. Rescue squads from Gothenburg and the nearby town of Kingalv report that most of the village of Suate has moved hundreds of feet into the river. Squads of rescue workers, consisting of troops, police firemen and hundreds of volunteers, rushed to the scene in buses when they heard of the disaster. Tonight they are using tractors and dynamite to get people out of overturned buildings. Among all those searching and working are crying children, wandering among the ruins looking for someone they know. Describing the start of the landslide, Mrs Julia Larsson, a bank clerk’s wife said: “I grabbed by four-year-old son and tried to run outside, but the house was galloping towards the river. Then it stopped with a jerk. The front-split open and we walked out unhurt through a big crack.” Mr Tore Graadfeldt said: “We were breakfasting in the kitchen when the children noticed that everything seemed to be moving. We looked out of the window. The whole neighbourhood was moving towards the river as if a giant hand had started pushing. In five minutes our house moved about 450 feet.” (Earlier message this page) Refugees Return To War-torn Korean Villages TOKIO, This Day (Rec. 1.15 p.m.) —Endless white columns were today straggling through paddy fields and along the battered roads of South Korea, writes William Parrot (the N.Z.P.A.-Reuter correspondent' at Taegu). The refugees were going home. Officials estimated that, there were 2,000,000 peasants in their traditional white robes in the great forlorn trek, travelling on foot or in Ox carts. The women often carried wretched handfuls of household goods that they had clung to throughout the nightmare of the last three months. They were all heading north To see

what had happened to their villages they left when the war swept down on them. Many will find their hamlets just a pile of ashes. Most of the houses they left behind will need to be rebuilt.

Most of the peasants were hoping to find their rice and other crops ready for harvesting but even these have, in many cases, been destroyed. Thousands of them will have to start from the bottom up with nothing but a handful of reunited neighbours to convince them that they are really home. ’