DISASTER IN NORWAY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18367, 9 April 1934, Page 7

DISASTER IN NORWAY

CRAG FALLS COOOFT. TIDAL WAVES CAUSED 50 PEOPLE PERISH (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) OSLO, April 7. Fifty 'persons, including a family of nine, were killed when a large crag crashed into Korsnaes Fiord, creating three tidal waves and sweeping inland half a mile. Two small fishing villages were overwhelmed. The ground was littered with debris of houses and boats. Tt is feared that other villages have also been destroyed. Forty bodies were discovered in the village of Tajford. ■•> There 'were only Fjoerea.'*' The crag fell 0000 ft., causing scenes so terrible that eye-witnesses declared that they believed that the day of judgment had arrived. Thirty foot high waves hurled motor boats and other vessels against houses, itiany occupants being entrapped in the wreckage. • There was a great column of flame when the waves reached the electricity transformer. A mother- jvrith three children in her arms, climbed out of a window on to the roof, but the rising waters swept away the father who, carrying a son, ran up a little hill and held his boy up at arm’s length until he was submerged. The child was saved in a half-d row nod condition.

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.