'QUAKE'S HEAVY TOLL

Chronicle (Levin), 1 July 1948, Page 5

'QUAKE'S HEAVY TOLL

(N.Z.P.A.-

Reuter ,

Hundreds Were Killed By Falling Walls

Copyright)

Reeeived "Wednesday, 11 p.m. TOlvJLO, June 3Q;. F'our tliousand deatlis in Fukui ' as tlie result oi tlie earthquakes, are officially reported by tlie ? police today and tlie total casualties, inclttding injured, ai'e estimated at 13,000. This total is expected to increase shai'ply when the debris. is eleared. Fol'iee reports said 52 towns and villages were damaged and 47, .568 houses destroyed. Twelve more slioe-ks rocked the northwest eoast oi Japan today. . Majoi' Paul Adams, oi the United States army, who spent the morning in- an aircraft over the earthquake area, said the countryside within a radius of 25 niiles from Fukui was completely devastated. He added ; ' ' The smell of the place was like that of burning flesli." Trams thrown from the traeks were,- lying on their sides, a railway viaduct had felescoped into the air, disorganising all train traffic, and a bridge on the main highway had left its foundations, Major Adams said. Fukui was a smouldering niin, with the few remaining ferro-con-erete buildings leaning drunkenly on their sides.. Hampered by fal'len hridges, lapturned roads and mangled railway lines, rescue supplies from land were reaching Fukui only in a trickle today, but substantial quantities oi medical relief equipment were dropped by United 1 States Far East aircraft. From a steady stream of survivors and from the American observers who flew over the city it | was possible to piece together ' something of what hapened in I Fukui. The worst disasters oc- ! currecl in a packed picture ! theatre, where the walls crumbled, : burying alive an undetermined j number of people, and at the raili way station, where sco.res were l killed by falling debris from the station building. Aerial photographs of shattered Fukui show half-a-dozen concrete j buildings still standing, but most of these are gutted. TUackened ! eorpses still lie among tlre smokUig rinhs aiid'bfiVei's lie along1 tHe streets where their families and friends have placed them. ! Fukui- 's hourishing textile industry has been badly hit. The Mlnistrv of Commerce estimates the fmancial loss at between 7,000,000,000 and 8.000.000,000 yeri. The city manufactured 40 per eent. of Japan 's silk yarn.