AMBRYM ERUPTION.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 20 December 1913, Page 7

AMBRYM ERUPTION.

ACCURATE ESTIMATE

IMPOSSIBLE.

.BY CABLE—PBESB ASSOCIATION—COPYBIGHT. SYDNEY, Dec. 20. (Received Dec. 20, 1.30 p.m.) . This number (500) is at least missing, though an accurate estimate is impossible. HARROWING INCIDENTS: One village was surrounded by lava, and the residents were unable' to es^ <?ape fifty or sixty perishing in view ■of.those who were onlookers. Many other harrowing instances of the destruction are recorded. STEAMER VOLUNTEERS. _The Pacifique was at Ar>ia at the time of the outbreak, and hurried to Port Sandwich. Captain Charvin. on behalf of the Messageries Maritimes Company, offered his services, and the Pacifique,. was despatched to skirt the «oast of Ambrym and pick up other possible refugees. LOVELINESS SUCCEEDED BY DESOLATION.

The vessel had; a trying experience, as red iot boulders fell around her, land navigation was otherwise difficult, -owing to the trees which had fallen from cliffs and were floating in the isea, vrhich was also strewn with great quantities of dead fish and turtles. The island itself, one of the beauty -spots of the Pacific, presented a desolate appearance. Streams of lava and 41«6t had wiped out all the beautiful vegetation and destroyed buildings, and fissures were everywhere venting out smoke and sulphurous vapors. Every large eruption of the craters was followed by a tidal wave, though not of great size, while the force of ■fche exnloeions caused the 6teamer to quiver like an aspen leaf.At Ranon Bay, ten miles from the the dust was so thick that it broke dowji the i»alm trees. The intense heat nad dried all the water, and the cattle were dying.