FIRST-HAND ACCOUNTS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 73, 28 March 1933, Page 5

FIRST-HAND ACCOUNTS

EARTHQUAKE DAMAGE

IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

(By Telegraph.) (Social to "The Evening Post!")

AUCKLAND, March 27.

Graphic first-hand accounts of the disastrous earthquake which shook Southern California on the evening of March 10 were brought to Auckland by passengers and members of the crew of the liner Monterey, which was lying at the wharf at Wilmington, Los Angeles, when the earthquake occurred. No damage was done to the ship, although she was tossed from side to side.

"The ship, wharf, and everything else suddenly reeled to one side and then, caine back again," said an officer of the Monterey. "Wo rushed on deck and saw. that" the wharf had cracked open in two places, "and that, the part between the cracks had dropped about sis inches.

"The tremors continued, and the ship shook violently. Things -were thrown off the tables. The straining of the bnildings on the wharf as-they were tossed to and fro made a terrible dim Luckily, there was no tidal wave. , "The Monterey was to have sailed at 10 o 'clock that night, but a number of the passengers travelling to the ship .were held up vhen . the . earthquake occurred, and the sailing was postponed until 10 o'clock next morning. 'It was also considered dangerous to attempt to leave before daylight in case the bed of the harbour had been .raised by the shocks. The tremors continued throughout the night, and.jiewly-arrived passengers made their way at once to the ship as being the > safest place of Tefuge. SCHOOLS SHAKEN DOWN. "The electric power was cut off on shore," said an officer, "and trains stopped running. I Had just got out of a train at the wharf when the big shock came. Other people coming to the ship in motor-cars from the direction of Long Beach saw walls tumbling out of buildings, although in Los Angeles itself the damage was mainly confined to falling cornices and brokea plate glass windows. ' " .."Every- school- in. Compton was shaken down. Panic occurred in most of. the picture theatres in the area, and people rushed- for the streets.

I "Traffic -was. delayed by. .fallen masonry, and on one of .the trains .that was held up was a baggage car bringing passengers' luggage to the Monterey. The car was 'thrown right oft [the rails, and the "luggage had to /be I brought the rest of• the way by road. A watchman who remained on the wharf all night with creaking timber and concrete all about him was almost a nervous wreck in the morning. . Tho latest, news we had was that there were about 130 deaths. Many deaths from shock were not counted in the casualties. When we got to Honolnlii all the Los Angeles newspapers on the ship were snapped up by people on shore who-Tvanted news."

Sir John Vicars, a prominent Sydney business'man, said that with a-num-ber of other people he was standing in the Oceanic Company's wharf shed when, the main shock came. It threw them all over the' place. He looked up expecting to see heavy beams falling 6n them; when he looked down again he saw. that a great crack had opened in the floor less than six feet .from whero he was standing.

: Those passengers who were not already on the steamer rushed out to the open ground, where a train was standing. A shed on the wharf looked as if it were going to collapse, and ona [of the CTacks in "the wharf was several hundred feet long. The cracks seemed to open and close. .It was; not-possible to get the .mails on the vessel until 1 o'clock next morning. •.