EARTHQUAKE IN ITALY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10042, 9 January 1909, Page 3

EARTHQUAKE IN ITALY.

[Br Elsctric Tklsobaih.—Coftbigkt (Pas Pusi Assochtiox.) Received Jannary 8, at 11.35 p.m. Rome, January 8. Xobody is allowed to enter Messina with oiit a The troops fire od all per sons detected stooping over ruins. Italy has thanked America, for gener ocsly offering to send warships into thi Straits, adding that at present their assist ance is hot required. All th« foreign war ships will have left to-day. residej his previccs donition, Kins • \ i.i"t tjiiiiiinati has given JJHMJCO ster ling to the Red Cross and iB2O,QCQ to th< »fional Relief Committee. Three persons were rescued at Messinj yesterday. London, Jannary 8. The Mansion House Fund has reached £70,000. A ri-quiem was held at V.'eatminstei Cathedral in the presence of tie Lord Mayor, Lady Mayoress, and the Italian The collection for the relief Fund amoan:ed to £l5O. Received January 'B, at 10.30 p.m. Rome, January 8. _ Th? director of the Etna Observatory visited 31es?ina, and found enormoiw fissures in the mountains behind the town. [The cacao of the earthquake is known perhaps tester than that of any other that hns occurred. That part of Italy has been Hi--", idj; rr.rire or less, continuously for three years, and at frequent intervals before. And some time after the last disaster, in 1903, it was stated in "Xature" that Italian scientists had arrived at a finding as to the cause of it. The centre of all the movement in recent years is said to be Monteleone, which daring 'the pjst three years has experienced a succession of severe shocks. Parallel to the Italian coast, somewhere in the line from Ve?n\ ios to Etna, and curving round into Sicily, there is said to be a fault in the earth's surface. The earthquake is the shifting, up or down, of one side or the Other of this long crack. The shifting in ISJOS was begun at a place, they say, 50 kilometres (31 miles) below the surface of th.- earth. What cansed the rock in that prtkular part to give way is not known.] 'lhne cere several alarming shocks at I'--g;io. Monteleone, Talmi, and Catania yesterday. 'I he British warships left enormous etores at Villa San Giovanni. The Admiral, before his departure, received a frantic ovation, the population crediting the British sailors with having done all the rescue work in the ruins, "iiiere were cries of "Long live England; long live <iur savionrs." Received Jannary 9, at 9.55 a.m. Melbourne, JaTr.uirj 9. The Consul-General of Italy, acknowledging the Commonwealth's contribution to the earthquake fund, says: "The Com monwcalth Government has given most generous sanction to a most nohle principle which ignores time and distance, is above race discriminations and prejudices of every kind, audi is the troe basis of civilisation. The action has earned the everlasting gratitude of the warm-hearted Italian people."