SUBMARINE EARTHQUAKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20841, 7 April 1931, Page 10

SUBMARINE EARTHQUAKE.

SHOCK FELT AT DARWIN. PLAYGOERS MOVE FOR EXITS. A few minutes past ten o'clock on the night of Saturday, March 28, an earthquake shock was felt at Danvi.n, Northern Australia. The theatres were crowded, and, though there was no panic, the audiences made a rapid move for tho exits, but jreturned quietly soon afterwards. Father O'Leary, officer in charge of the Riverview Observatory, says a Sydney newspaper, staled that, while the record was not sufficiently clear to enable him to calculate the exact location, the earthquake had occurred about 24G0 miles north-west of Sydney. He thought it possible that the centre of tho disturbance had been somewhere in the Banda Sea (north of Timor). The absence of reports of damage made it likely that it had been suboceanic. Tho earthquake was recorded at the Government Observatory at Perth, and tho Government. Astronomer, Mr. H. B. Cifrlewis, calculates that it occurred in the ocean floor midway between Darwin and Timor. -Substantial changes, he said, were likely to have occurred in the ocean bed. Wyndham, Derby, and Broome reported having experienced earth tremors. The earthquake was explained at Daiwin in terms of native lore, by the La£I'akeyah aboriginals. They state that !> large stone close to tho sea at Oasuarina is the King (!od, the first aboriginal and the creator of all others. Occasionally the tides reach (he stone, airl they say that tho Kinp God must have turned over in his sleep, "big fish berti bit 11111," thus causing him'to stir mightiH.