OVER FIFTY DEAD

Hokitika Guardian, 9 April 1934, Page 5

OVER FIFTY DEAD

FIORD DISASTER

TERRIBLE NORWEGIAN TRAGEDY.

(United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph— Copyright.)

OSLO, April 7

Forty persons ,including a family of nine, were killed when a huge crag crashed into the Korsnaes Fiord. The crash created three tidal waves, each sweeping the land for half a mile. Two small fishing villages were overwhelmed. The ground became littered with the debris of houses and boats. It is feared that other villages have also been destroyed. WORST DISASTER IN 20 YEARS. CRAG FALLS 6000 FEET. (Received this d-ay at 10.30 a.m.) OSLO, April 8. It is believed that over fifty are dead as a result of the Korsnaes fiord catastrophe. Forty bodies have been recovered at the village of Tajford. There were only seven survivors in the village of Fjoeraa. The crag fell six., thousand feet causing scenes so Terrible, that- an eyewitness declared he believed the day of judgment bad arrived. Thirty foot Waves hurled motor-boats and other vessels against the bouses, many occupants being entrapped in the wreckage-.

There was a great column of flame when the waves reached the electricity transformer.

A mother with three children in her arms climbed through a window o n to the roof of her house, but the lushing waters swept them away. A father, carrying bi s son, ran up a little bill and held the boy up at arms length until submerged, the child being saved but being in h halfdrowned condition.

Residents dragged boats across country and rowed in darkness searching for survivors.

. The- winters subsided within twentyfive minutes.

The disaster was the worst Norway lias experienced in twenty years.