JAP. AIR RAID.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13643, 30 August 1937, Page 5

JAP. AIR RAID.

LEAVES 600 DEAD. HARROWING SCENE AT NANTAO United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright SHANGHAI, August 29.The casualty list at Nantao, after an air raid by Japanese ’planes, was 600 killed and 1200 wounded, Japanese bombing ’planes concentrated on the south station, the Kiaiignan arsenal and the local administrative buildings on the outer fringes ol Nantao. The inhabitants were thrown into panic, and thousands stampeded towards the French concession, where locked gates were opened only for ambulances. The bombs started huge fires. The raiders also attacked Pootuiig, Ohapei and other areas, and four bombs struck the south station, which was crowded with refugees awaiting trains and whose ranks were swelled by panic-stricken fugitives from elsewhere. The bombs demolished the tracks a,nd sheds and littered a. quarter of a square mile with the mangled bodies oi the dead and dying. The victims were mostly women and children, who were blown along the railway lines with severed legs, arms and heads and scattered over yards. The ambulance service did its utmost amid confusion. Rickshaws rushed those injured to tlie hospital, which was already over-crowded with Chinese soldiers.

Japanese warshijDs are still shelling Nantao.

British doctors attending the casualties appeal to the British Medical Association to use all passible political pressure to prevent the Japanese bombers’ inhuman slaughter of women*, children and babies. The Japanese Naval Spokesman says the south station was bombed owing to the pressure of Chinese soldiers, .and would again be bombed if these continued to assemble.

The Chinese Military Spokesman dares that, there are no Chinese regulars at Nantao; merely members of the Peace Preservation Corps. Chinese artillery shelled Hongkow, directing jits fire on the main market, which is surrounded by Japanese clubs and institutions. Several were killed and wounded.