KOBE DISASTER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23112, 10 August 1938, Page 10

KOBE DISASTER

FLOOD CAUSES HAYOC. EYE-WITNESS' ACCOUNT JAPANESE CITY SWEPT OVER 750 DEAD OR MISSING [BY TELEGRAPH —OWN CORRESPONDENT] WELLINGTON, Tuesday Details of the phenomenal downpour of rain in Kobe, fourth city of Japan, on July 5, when 753 people were killed or reported missing and 2000 injured, are contained'in a letter received by a Wellington resident from a friend who witnessed the disaster. "Kobe has been built up over the past 70 years oh former beds of streams and gullies, which have been covered over and houses and streets built thereon," the letter states. "From time to time in the periods of heavy rains, freshets from the hills have caused serious damage and loss of life, but land about Kobe has so increased in value that the possibility of making money has over-ridden tho good judgment of the owners in using it. Blocks ol Houses Demolished "This year we had experienced a very wet, 'rainy' season. On July 3 it began to rain very heavily and by July 5 it became evident that serious damage was being done in the town. Our street was turned into a rapidflowing river, along which were carried parts of wrecked houses, brandies of trees and logs from the hills. This was in a quiet back street of the old foreign settlement and was merely an overflow from a rushing torrent several blocks away. It came down from the hills, more than a mile distant, and flowed along one of Kobe's principal streets, right under the Sannomija railway station. "Where the water emerged from the hills whole blocks of houses gradually disappeared, and lower down houses were filled with silt and wreckage up to the ceilings of the first floors. Cars and trucks were buried in the debris, and so strong was the flow of water that one large electric car was swept off the railhead into a grocer's shop. Public Utilities Destroyed "These conditions prevailed in dozens of places along the hillsides. Streams of water suddenly appeared and washed away everything in their path —roads, electric cars and railway tracks. These streams now flow right down to the sea. No railway or electric car can reach within 10 miles of the city. We have no water supply in the city or suburbs and no gas, although, fortunately, the electricity has not failed." Giving statistics as to the damage, the writer said that in addition to those killed, missing and injured, 150,000 people were rendered homeless, 4400 houses were washed away or collapsed, 185,000 houses were flooded, and over 30,000 acres of farmlands and paddyfields were destroyed, buried or inundated. The -torrents deposited in their path rocks many tons in weight and the size' of a saloon car. The Home Minister attributed the disaster mainly to excessive deforestation, ' too many underground drains, and the excessive narrowing of rivers in order to* increase residential land.