MANY KILLED.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12617, 9 April 1934, Page 5

MANY KILLED.

NORWEGIAN DISASTER.

TIDAL WAVES IN FIORD.

FISHING VILLAGES OVERWHELMED. HUGE MASS FALLS 6000 FEET. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copy r lgh t. OSLO, April 7. Forty, including a family of nine, were killed when a huge crag crashed into Kornacs fiord, creating three tidal waves which swept inland half a mile.

Two small fishing villages were overwhelmed and the ground littered with debris, houses and boats. It is feared that other villages were also destroyed. A later message states that it is believed that over 50 are dead. Forty bodies have been recovered in the village of Tajfora. There are only seven survivors in the village of Fjoeraa. The crag fell 6000 feet, causing scenes so terrible that an eye-wit-ness declared that people believed that the Day of Judgment had arrived. Thirty-foot waves hurled motor-boats and other vessels against houses many occupants being trapped by the wreckage. A great column of flame arose when the waves reached an electricity transformer.

A mother, with three children in her arms, climbed from a window on the roof, but the rising waters swept her away. The father, carrying a son, ran up a little hill and held the boy up at arms’ length until he was submerged. The child was saved, half drowned. Residents dragged boats across the country and rowed in the darkness searching for survivors. The waters subsided within 25 minutes. The disaster was the worst in Norway for 20 years.