JAVA ERUPTION.

Marlborough Express, Volume LIII, Issue 167, 16 July 1919, Page 6

JAVA ERUPTION.

.Jte~ . 50,000 PEOPLE WIPED OUT.

SYDNEY, June 24. ! Steamers arriving from the Dutch East Indies are "bringing horrible stories of the eruption ~of Mount j Kloet, in tho, eastern end of the , island of Java, which killed 50,000 | natives and about 100 Europeans. j Kloet has erupted at intervals of I ten and twelve years for & long .while i past, and the people who lived in j the fertile country round about i knew their danger. Yet the popula-. j tion grew. The nearest town to the j volcano is Blitar. Ever since the : last disaster, in 1909, the Blitar j Europeans kept an express \ train ; ready, so that they could rush off to i safety at short notice. But, on this j occasion, Kloet gave no warning. A j cold-water lake near the summit i was suddenly emptied into the crater j and a terrible explosion resulted. I The whole mountain-side was blown ! out, and enormous streams of molten j lava rushed out over the surrounding i country. The ashes came in such ! quantities that the daylight was ' shot out, jwkl the intense, dfafi-knesa . was lit only by the red flames which ; : played above the peak, miles away. It appears to have been a scene of , terror which beggars description. •, The maddened populace stampeded, ■ bub they were cut off in every direc- j tion by the lava streams. In dashing, | away from one, they would fall iri" < thousands into another, and perish j horribly. The ground that was not i swept away by the burning lava was j buried deeply under showers of ashes > and stones. Explosion followed ex- j plosion, and boulders of enormous J size were scattered over the country- j side. , I The people of Blitar, although 30 i miles away from the volcano, were ; unable to escape. Almost before j they realised what had happened the i streams of lava were upon them. ; One great molten river split just; before it reached the town, and a j stream went round either side, so \ that the wretched people were com- j pletely trapped. In rushing madly { away from one stream, they were j engulfed in the other. Literally, in j a few minutes, • all communication i with the outside world was cut off. ] What happened then can be better ] imagined than described. The native ! people, in a frenzy, rushed a,bout i like trapped animals, the darkness j was pierced by occasional flashes j from the erupting mountain, little ! streams of lava, which annihilated i every living thing it toucheci, crept silently and insidiously into the town, the air Avas full of choking ! masses of ashes, and the earth was | torn by constant and mad rumblings. I The eruption died- down after some ! hours, but it was nearly two days before parties of Dutch sailors penetrated into, the scene of desolation that was once a prosperous little town. Whole villages were wiped out for fifty miles around the mountain. The homesteads on the big plantations, two-storeyed stone houses mostly, were crushed as if they were eggshells, and showers of stones fell so heavily on most of the plantations that they are virtually ruined. Showers of ashes fell over all that end of Java, and will do enormous damage to crops. Tho total damage will run into millions. -»•