RUIN AND DEATH

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2361, 18 January 1915, Page 6

RUIN AND DEATH

ITALY'S DEVASTATED COUNTRY-SIDE ROUND THE STRICKEN DISTRICTS DEATH ROLL MOUNTING UP By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright Rome, January 15. Half of Magliana, di Marsi has been destroyed. There are 1300 dead. Three-parts of Pescina was destroyed. Here there are 4000 dead. Three thousand persons at San Benedetto were buried in the ruins. All the houses in Cappadocia are uninhabitable, and the people are camping in the snow. Nothing remains of Alba Fucensis. It is believed the whole of the population has perished. Of 9000 people at Lapelje only '30 are alive. The King has gone to Sora, where there is little hope of rescuing those buried. , MESSfNA ECLIPSED FRIGHTFUL MORTALITY RATE. SCENES AT AVEZZANO. (Rec. January 17, 1.45 p.m.) Rome, January .16. The disaster surpasses Messina in the low percentage of survivors. Only from two to three per centum escaped at.Avezzano, while thirty per cent, survived the Messina disaster.

The violence of the shock was unprecedented.' A carter was passing fifty yards from a house thirty feet ,hign when the house was literally hurled' against him, burying the horse and cart. Avezzano was ground to powder, as by a gigantic machine, and corpses are putrefying, as the whole attention of the rescuers is devoted to tho wounded under the ruins. The rescuers at the outset were so few that they could not do more than mark the spots where voices were heard. When help was forthcoming the voices were silent. Two girls who were protected under a piano implored help for two days, and were slowly asphyxiated by the dust, and frozen by the cold. Fires broke out at several points, and some of the unfortunates were undoubtedly burned alive. Fire also completed the destruction at Maghano. One hundred people were buried under a church at Custilliri during_ a funeral service.

The rescuers at Sora found that seven nuns and a priest had been killed at the altar duriue communion. ■ Sixty bodies were found in the din-ing-room of a girls' college at Avezzano. Seven-eighths of the population at Massadalbe, and the majority of 1 tho population at Cerchios were killed, while large numbers Were buried under churches. ' ,There is much damage at Siibiaco, ; including the Benedictine Abbey. Seven hundred bodies have been recovered at Sora. LATEST ESTIMATES OF THE DEATH ROLL. Rome, January 16, Later. At latest estimates thirty thousand are dead in the Abruzzi region, including fourteen .thousand in the Avezzano district. Countess Resta's five sons were rescued alive at Avezzano. The Count clung to the ruins of the palace, spurned sympathetic condolences, and worked tenaciously for two days and nights to extricate his family RESCUERS' PERILOUS WORK. (Rec. January 18, 1.20 p.m.) Rome, January 17. Relief work continues under moat' dangerous conditions. Great crevasses have appeared in the cemetery at Soro, whence masses of boiling' water are being thrown up. TREMORS FELT IN SYDNEY AND MELBOURNE. (Reo. January 18, ■ 0.5 a.m.) Sydney, January 17. The seismographs at Sydney and Melbourne disclosed slight earth tremors, corresponding to the time of tho Italian earthquake.