THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 6745, 17 February 1909, Page 2

THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE

IMPRESSIONS OF MESSINA. (From "The Times" Special Correspondents.; MESSINA, January 5. A city ruined and deserted, the dead, silence, of the, grave, horror stamped ou the faces of the few persons who escaped and have not yet fled—that is what J have found at Messina. Of the many impressions that remain witli me to-nisht three stand out above the rest. When we had passed Scyllu and rounded Capo del Faro, there wa-s opened up a panorama of destruction. Faro, Pni-ndiNO, and all the villages along the coast were in ruins. Then Messina came into sight. The. sun was setting, and a lovely frame of violet hills, a tranquil dark eon, and a sky of emerald and gold surrounded the, scene of the world's greatest tragedy. At first the extent of the disaster was not apparent, for white walls showed prettily against the dark background, and it was hard to believe that the city was destroyed. Hut soon,we saw that nothing remained but tottering shells. All alanj; the magnificent curved sea-front was ruin; nothing broke the desolate line, nothing had beon spared. And then wo entered the harbour, and the most dreadful thing of all became apparent to us. Messina was dead. Throuchout the length of tho Corso Vittorio Emanuele, which a few days ago had been an esplanade busy with traffic and gay with life and colour, was .silence, the silence of tho grave. Sometimes a few soldiers passed, and at one point there was a small crowd waiting for a distribution of food. The rest was death. ' That was my first impression. THE SCENE BY NIGHT. The night fell, and the only illumination was from the lamps and searchlights of the many ships in the harbour. I was rowed ashore. The searchlight of an Italian warship played on a single spot, and to it the boatmen took me. I was where the troops had organised some sort of headquarters, and a little band of soldiers were sitting round a camp fire. They talked softly, as men do in the presence of death, and in the brilliant light from the ship it .seemed that this was the only place alive in what had been a town of a hundred thousand inhabitants. This was my second impression. I walked the length, of the Corso, and then I realised the full horror of what had befallen Messina. A large city has been smashed as a class dish would be smashed if it were thrown upon a'stone floor. That any inhabitants, survived seems miraculous; that tho most appalling estimates of the loss of life; have not been exaggerations appears evident. To go into details is useless. It is ruin everywhere. Tho only thing I found intact woe Montorsoli's beautiful foun-, tain of Neptune. ' And over all was the same awful silence. I did not see a hundred refugees. There aro about 2000 left who mostly sleep in the ships in the harbour while perhaps 6000 aro on the hills behind the town. The rest are dead or have lied. Or they are dying. The crowning horror is the belief, nav certainty, that under some of those hideous masses of fallen bricks and stone are human beings who are slowly perishing. Three more persons were-dug out alive to-day. It were best not to dwell on the thought of the others, for to savemore thun a very few is impossible. NO COMPARISON WITH SAN FRANCISCO. From this last blow the most unfortunate, of all historic cities cannot, I fear, recover. It Beems impossible that there can be another Messina; the disaster is too complete, too overwhelming. There is not a. habitable building left. I suppose that comparisons have been made with the destruction of San Francisco. No real comjiarison is possible. I was in Sail Francisco five days after the earthquake and already wooden structures wore being put up, work had begun on the tramway lines, and the main streets were crowded with cheerful, hopeful people. Tho residential portion of the city had been spared, and just across tho bay was Oakland to servo ns a temporary place of business. The case of Messina is altogether different. Soon there will be nobody left but the troops.' A small settlement may be established, but Messina has disappeared.