CHINESE EARTHQUAKE

Otago Witness, Issue 3829, 2 August 1927, Page 30

CHINESE EARTHQUAKE

SEVERAL VILLAGES INUNDATED. SHANGHAI, July 28. After a lapse of two months, owing to the lack of communication resulting from the existing disorders in China, a letter from Monsigneur Buddebrot, VicarApostolic at Hanchow, Kansu province, supplies details of the terrible earthquake on May 23.

He estimated that 100,000 people perished. The survivors are living in huts, practically without food and clothing. At the town of Lisiang 100 people weee in a church when it collapsed, and many were killed, including the Mother Superior. In other parts of the town houses collapsed wholesale, and thousands were burned. Manv other towns and villages within a radius of 70 kilometres were destroyed, and thousands perished The important town of Tumexze was practically buried beneath a moving moun tain.

Following the first disastrous quake, shocks occurred daily, adding terror to the distress and destruction, which the missionaries were working heroically and feverishly to alleviate. The letter adds that the full extent of the havoc is not known, but describes the visitation as among the world's greatest catastrophe. TERRIFIC BURST OF WATER. APPALLING LOSS OF LIFE. SHANGHAI. July 29. Ten thousand natives were drowned and the crop losses are conservatively estimated at 5,000,000 dollars, through floods at Changchow, in the Fukien province. Changchow is situated in a valley in a mountainous district, and following several weeks’ rain, the accumulated waters burst with terrific force and thundered down the mountain-side and inundated several villages. Mr Riley, the London Times correspondent, is still missing.