CALIFORNIAN EARTHQUAKE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21439, 13 March 1933, Page 8

CALIFORNIAN EARTHQUAKE

The disaster . which has befallen Southern California is one New Zealand understands very well. This country has had only too bitter and recent experience of the death and devastation an earthquake can cause .not to realise what it means to Los Angeles, Long Beach and the other centres in which the shocks have been felt. Though it is difficult to estimate from the cabled accounts just what the results in loss of life and the destruction of property have been, it is reasonably certain this has not been a major disaster. The Pacific coast of North America, especially certain parts of it in United States territory, is marked as an area subject to earthquakes. The tremors there are frequent, but usually so slight that only the evidence of recording instruments shows them to have occurred. Under these conditions it is inevitable that heavier shocks should be suffered from time to time. When centres of population are in the path of the earthquake, what has happened to several Californian cities is inevitable also. Then comes the realisation that with the forces of nature unleashed, buildings raised by human hands are liable to be swept away, and the habit mankind has developed of herding together in close-built cities brings its nemesis. Classifying this earthquake as something less than a major disaster means it has brought nothing comparable with the devastation which fell upon San Francisco in 1906. Yet this part of California is experiencing the sense of loss, of helplessness and of grief which New Zealand felt within all too recent memory. There has evidently been the same uncertainty, the same difficulty in realising exactly what has happened, the same need for succour and relief in the distressed areas. These circumstances should make the sympathy which all the world must feel for the stricken area especially ready and understanding , on New Zealand's part.