EARTHQUAKE SHOCKS

Otago Witness, Issue 2779, 19 June 1907, Page 27

EARTHQUAKE SHOCKS

DEATH AND DESTRUCTION IN JAMAICA.

ROME, June 17. Earthquake shocks have been experienced in the neighbourhood of Stromboli, also in the vicinity of Gibraltar, travelling north to south. NEW YORK, June 14. Word from Kingston states that an earthquake from the south-east has been experienced. It was especially severe at. Port Royal, destroying the walls of the temporary buildings under construction there. During a dash for the open 40 of the Royal viarrison Artillery and Royal Engineers were injured, 11 seriously. Fifteen men had to be conveyed to the hospital. The panic was intensified by a curious turbulence of the sea near the coast. Six soldiers of the West Indian Regiment were injured while making a similar dash. Port Royal, which is the harbour of Kingston, and one of the principal ports of Jamaica, was destroyed b> an earthquake in 1692, and in the year following the city of Kingston was founded. " Port Royal was rebuilt again, but was afterwards totally destroyed by a severe earthquake in 1722. It has not been rebuilt since, and is now simply a naval station with a large dockyard. Port Royal is connected with Kingston by a long sandy strip of land covered with oocoanut palms known as " The Balustrades," and thi6 constitutes a natural breakwater and forms a harbour. In the old days Port Royal was the principal of the West Indies and a large naval station. A remarkable thing about the big earthquake at Port RoyaJ in 1722 was that the land eank many feet and the water flowed over it, and the present Port Royal harbour floats over the site of the old city. The old buildjngs of the submerged city still stand erect below +he water, and on calm mornings one could look down from a ship's side and see the buildings standing erect 20ft and 30ffc below the eurface of the water. The streets and many of the buildings can be clearly distinguished—in fact, one church with its spire is very conspicuous, and the spire has a buoy floating over it to warn vessels from striking it when coming alongside* the dockyard.