RICHEST AREA AFFECTED

Taranaki Daily News, 13 March 1933, Page 7

RICHEST AREA AFFECTED

DESTRUCTION IN TRIANGLE COMPTON TOWN LEVELLED HUNDREDS WORK IN RELIEF Rec. 6.30 p.m. Los Angeles, March 11. Part of the richest area in California, 200 miles long and 30 miles wide, was affected by the earthquake—from the Mexican border to Santa • Barbara and from the sea coast to the mountains. More than 2,000,000 people have been settled there since the last major earthquake of the apparent series which visits Southern California in Nature’s continent building every 75 years or so. The belt includes a citrus industry worth 100,000,000 dollars annually, the heart of the motion picture industry, and the largest number of homes of the wealthy from all parts of the continent of any place in the world. The motion picture plants, the homes of the wealthy in Beverley Hills, Hollywood, Pasadena, Altadena and San Marino, and in fact all of the areas of magnificent homes and estates, were merely on the fringe of the jolting waves of death and destructon which centred in a triangular region with its apex in the centre of down town Los Angeles and extending south-west through the industrial centres of Southern California. To the south it fanned into the oil regions, Santa Fe Springs, Labrea • and the groves of the orange country. In the centre it went down the heart of the industrial section, embracing numerous communities and dealing with each in greater severity, with the worst havoc at Longbeach, which has been made wealthy by its oil royalties and which' is perhaps the best known seashore city and Mecca of summer visitors. _ To the westward the triangle included the rich Dominguez and Torrance oil fields and largest oil storage plants and refineries in the world in the region north of Longbeach and surrounding Los Angeles harbour. '.. ' WAITING FOR YEARS. At Pasagena the earthquake was what tire Cargenie institution and the seismological laboratory has been waiting for for years. Scientists believed Southern California would experience another great earthquake, and the Carnegie institution was built oh a “fault” on the outskirts of Pasadena. Delicate self-re-cording instruments have been installed, and careful records made with the hope of their being of value in studying earth disturbances leading up to this major earthquake make it possible to forecast the great tremors. The Los Angeles correspondent of the New York Times says that simultaneously with the search for the bodies amid the wreckage of houses and business buildings of 14 cities and towns in Southern California which suffered an intermittent earthquake for almost 24 hours carp of the injured and relief work for the homeless were being carried on by an army of State and local officials, National Guardsmen of the United States, soldiers, sailors marines, Red Cross, Salvation Army and hundreds of citizens. The extent of the disaster cannot be recognised in the terror and confusion of last night To-day it ■ became better known and the task of searching the tottering structures could be better accomplished, though the work had to proceed slowly owing to the danger that the workers themselves might be buried under ■ new avalanches of crumbling material cast off as the trembling continued. Kitchens are being sent mto the afflicted areas to feed thousands who would otherwise go hungry. The damage to major buildings down town at Los Angeles was estimated at only 250,000 dollars compared with many millions’ loss at Longbeach and Compton, and 5,000,000 dollars in suburban Los Angeles. Damage ,to the piers, warehouses and wharves in Los Angeles harbour areas and Wilmington and San Pedro is estimated at 500,000 dollars. The wharves dropped fully six inches in some places* Excitement was manifest early to-day when' the main natural gas line from the f Kettelman Hills field broke and shot V' flames high until the valves could be 4b absck of the shocks indicated the

epicentre of the seismic movement to be under the bed of the Pacific Ocean in the Catalina Channel. Passengers on steamers from Los Angeles told of witnessing four land slides near Palos Verdes,, one of which nearly took away the lighthouse on Point Vincente. Santa Barbara, the scene of the last disastrous Southern California earthquake in June, 1925, was only slightly touched. San Diego, on the southern side, is similarly reported to have ed only slight effects. Compton, between Longbeach and Los Angeles, was virtually levelled. Only one building remained. As a result of staying out all night on lawns and other open places in the devastated area many persons are developing pneumonia, and cases are being reported at the rate of five each hour. This has added to the burden of the nursing and medical staffs.