Burma Rocked

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 965, 7 May 1930, Page 9

Burma Rocked

’QUAKE KILLS FIVE HUNDRED Rangoon Suffers Heavily TIDAL WAVE AND FIRE CAUSE PANIC United P.A. —By Telegraph—Copyright Received 9.50 a.m. DELHI, Tuesday. IT is feared that over 500 persons are dead in Pegu, Burma, as the result of an earthquake which was followed by fire and tidal wave from the rivers Pegu and Sittang last night. Kail and telegraphic communications are cut off and medical aid is being rushed by road. Fifty persons were killed and over 200 injured at Rangoon, where shocks were the worst in living memory.

At Rangoon many buildings, including the High Court and the Catholic Cathedral, were severely damaged. The majority of casualties occurred in the mosque and in a five-storey building, which collapsed, burying all its occupants alive. The population fled panic-stricken from their houses and spent the remainder of the night in the parks and open spaces.

Latest reports from Rangoon estimate the Pegu dead at from 500 to 700.

The town experienced three shocks. Terrible scenes were witnessed in the Panphiaing Seite area, two miles of which were destroyed by fire, hundreds being crushed and burnt to death.

Fifty persons perished in Myochite cinema.

Following the first shock the town was plunged into darkness, and a fire broke out in the bazaar area.

Wooden buildings were quickly blazing and terrified inhabitants fled. They encountered water four feet deep from the broken water mains and

were later overwhelmed by a tidal wave from the river. At the invitation of Maharaja Jamsaheb of Nawanagar, many prominent Indian princes held a meeting at Nawanagar to decide upon a course of action in view of the alarming situation throughout the country. FELT IN AUSTRALIA SYDNEY, Tuesday. Another violent earthquake has been recorded at the Sydney Observatory. The location of the shock was 5,095 miles north, in the direction of Japan or north-west of that country. It occurred just before midnight yes terday. A message from Wellington says Dr. C. E. Adams, Dominion seismologist, stated that the earthquake recorded at Sydney had been also recorded at the Kelburn Observatory. This record was a very fine one. A further examination of the film will be made tomorrow.