HUGE CRAG FALLS INTO FIORD

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19768, 9 April 1934, Page 8

HUGE CRAG FALLS INTO FIORD

TIDAL WAVES OVERWHELM VILLAGES. SERIOUS LOSS OF LIFE IN NORWAY. United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received April 8, 6.30 p.m.) OSLO, April 7. Forty, including a family of nine, were killed when a huge crag crashed into Korsnaes Fiord, creating three tidal waves which swept inland for half a mile. Two small fishing villages were overwhelmed. The ground is littered with debris and wrecked houses and boats. It is feared that other villages also were destroyed. SWEPT BY THIRTY FOOT WAVES. WORST DISASTER FOR TWENTY YEARS.. United Press Association —By Electrio Telegraph—Copyright (Received April 8, 11.20 p.m.) OSLO, April 8. It is believed that over 50 are dead as a result of the Korsnaes Fiord catastrophe. Forty bodies have been recovered in the village of Tajford. There are only seven survivors of the village of Ijoeraa. The crag fell 6000 feet, causing scenes so terrible that an eye-witness declared that he believed the day of judgment had arrived. Thirty foot waves hurled motor-boats and other vessels against houses, many occupants being entrapped in the wreckage. A great column of flame shot up when the waves reached an electricity transformer. A mother with three children in her arms climbed from a window on to a roof, but the rising water swept them away. A father carrying his son ran up a little hill and held the boy up at arm's length, until he was submerged, but the child was saved in a half-drowned condition. Residents dragged boats across the country and rowed in the darkness in search of survivors. The waters subsided within 25 minutes. The disaster is the worst in Norway for 20 years.