CRAG FALLS 6000 FEET

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 9 April 1934, Page 5

CRAG FALLS 6000 FEET

Disaster in Norwegian Fiord

GREAT TIDAL WAVES RAISED Loss of More Than Fifty Lives TWO VILLAGES OVERWHELMED FEARS FOR, OTHER. HAMLETS. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph Uopynguuj OSLO, April 7. Over 50 persons, including ti family of nine, were killed when a huge crag crashed into the Korsnaes Fiord, creating three tidal waves which swept inland lor half a mile. Two small fishing villages were overwhelmed and the ground was littered with debris, houses and boats. It is feared other villages also were destroyed. Forty bodies were recovered at the village of Tajford, and there are onjy seven survivors of the village of Fjoeraa The crag fell 6060 feet, causing scenes so terrible that eye-witnesses declared they believed the day of judgment had arrived Thirty-foot waves * hurled motorboats and other vessels against houses, many of the occupants being entrapped in the wreckage. A great column of flame arose when the waves reached an electricity transformer. A mother with three children in her arms climbed through a window on to the roof of her house, but the rising waters swept them away. The father, carrying a son, ran up a little hill ajui held the boy up at arm’s length until ho was submerged. The child was saved half drowned. Residents dragged boats across country and rowed in the darkness searching for survivors. 'Hie waters subsided within 25 minutes. The disaster is the worst in Norway for 20 years.