SHIFTING MOUNTAINSIDE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20150, 19 May 1928, Page 2 (Supplement)

SHIFTING MOUNTAINSIDE

FAMILIES BURIED IN HOMES. Sudden shifting of a side of Mount Serrat in the centre of the City of Santos, State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, crashed thousands of tons of earth and rocks without warning on to a section of that place, and left a dead and dying toll estimated at more than 200. Houses and buildings in the path of the slide were crumpled and buried, their occupants apparently not discerning the impending disaster until it was too late to escape the huge avalanche. While 2000 men were engaged In rescue work in the stricken area there were indications that the slide on one side of the mountain had wcakcnei'.i the dirt on still another side, and there was fear that another catastrophe in an adjoining district was impending. Mount Serrat. with a moderately high peak, is situated practically in the centre of Santos, Brazil’s principal coffee port, with residences and business buildings spread around it on throe sides. The avalanche occurred just before dawn, at 5.20 in the morning. Although there had boon previous warnings of a possible shifting of the side of the mountain there had been no indication that any such danger was immediate. Coming as it did, it undoubtedly caught many residents of the stricken area asleep.

Despatches to the Buenos Aires papers said sixteen houses were completely crumpled and buried; other estimates were even higher. Between throe and four million cubic yands ot earth are said to have shifted, completely burying to a depth of upwards of 40 feet an area whose bounds were in places as far distant as a hundred yards from the old base of the mountain.