SOUTH SEA EARTHQUAKE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12063, 18 July 1917, Page 6

SOUTH SEA EARTHQUAKE.

TUK ri'HKAVAL IX SAMOA. Furtlior particulars regarding the earthquake and tidal wave experienced in the Samoan group on Monday. June 'J."i, show that, lint since the great eruption in Savaii. twelve years ago, lias there heen an upheaval of so alarming a character. The earthquake was followed by a wave, the full force of which was experienced nu the side of the island oposite to Apia. On the Aleipnta coast the wave is described as sweeping in in a white wall of foam. Although dead low water at the lime, the wave swept over high water mark and across the bench into adjacent native houses, carrying everything before it. The natives were seared almost, to death, and fled into the bush to escape the fury of the wave. At Lotofaga, the wave swept through the natiVo houses into the plantation'; at the rear. About, two chains of a solid cement wall. Ift' thick- and 3ft high, was lifted hodily and carried away, pieces over half a lon weight heiny shifted fully 30ft, Tlalf the village was suhmcrgecl. and many houses destroyed. At Savaii Island the earthquake shook down the pinnacle of a church, and the succeeding tidal wave was of a most alarming character. A hridge was washed away, and a number of native houses, destroyed. A copra house was caught by the wave and carried a quarter of a mile down the coast.

At JTaapai, in the Tongan group, the residents were disturbed at the appearance of a wave in conjunction with several earthquake shocks of a specially severe nature. The sight of the sea receding from the reef created a very uncanny feeling, as it appeared to the onlookers on Lifuka. Tlaapai, a.s if the island were sinking below sea level and other reefs rising in its place. Tho latest Island mail received at Auckland contains reference to tho effects of the destructive earthquake end ocean wave at Keppell Island, about eighty miles south-west of Samoa, at (5 p.m. on June 25. Writing to Captain W. Ross, of Auckland, a resident of the island states that on tlie evening of the Monday Keppell was visited by a terrific earthquake lasting fully tw.> minutes. About a quarter of an hfftir afterwards the sea came up in three waves, the second being about nine feet high. Tt carried before it everything on the beach. The natives' houses wore all swept away; a scow went about a mile up the coast, and was pitched high and dry, and a lifeboat tied on tho beach was also carried right up. Several houses disappeared entirely, and tons of fish and turtir/( vovo cast up Indeed, it seems as if the whole island was living on fish and turtle, but the letter continues: "It will be terrible on the beach in a few days with nil these big and small dead things about.'' The writings speak of very great excitement amongst the inhabitants. During the' tremors there IV as "nothing lr.it yelling, crying, praying and tho sound of falling articles." But tho damage from this though perhaps more widely spread than the destruction caused by the wave, was not so great as was at first »• '