THE EARTHQUAKES AT THE LOYALTY ISLANDS.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 322, 24 June 1875, Page 3

THE EARTHQUAKES AT THE LOYALTY ISLANDS.

For the information of our readers we (New Zealand Herald) translate from the Moniteur de la Nouvelle Caledonie of the 28th April last, a more detailed account of the late earthquakes in the Loyalty Islands as given in extracts from letters of missionaries :

Fere R. P. Gaide, stationed at Lifu. writes from Gatcha, on the 4th April, to one of his brother missionaries, saying “ For the last eight days the soil of Lifu has been troubled by tremblings of the earth; and is it the same with you at Noumea ? On the night of Easter Sunday, about a quarter to 11 o’clock, we had perceived a first shock, a very strong one, which lasted almost a minute. During the same night, just before daybreak, two other shocks were felt, less violent, one of which lasted only for some seconds. On Easter Monday, about halfpast 7 o’clock in the morning, there was a fresh shock; very strong, but very short. On the night of Tuesday, about 9 o’clock, there was a shock as violent and as prolonged as the first. From that time Lifu seems to have recovered its equilibrium. After the two powerful and prolonged shocks of which I have spoken we have been frightened by a phenomenon still more surprising. During more than two hours after the trembling of the earth the sea rose much higher and descended much lower than in the highest and lowest tides, and that, too, in the space of a few minutes. On the two nights to which I have especially alluded, during a space of about two hours, we have had a certain number of low and high tides. At one, in the Bay of Chateaubriand, the sea has reached beyond the chapel blessed by Monseigneur last year, and which, as you know, is situated about fifty metres (over 162 feet) above the level of the highest tides. The church has been full of water. At on the south-east coast of Lifu, and more especially at Mou, the village where Boula resides, the sea has invaded all the cottages, and has carried several away in retiring. Twenty-four persons have perished ; I do not as yet know whether these deaths are at Mou only, or whether some of them have perished in the different villages. Several have been killed by the falling rafters of the houses overturned and afterwards carried away. We have to add that the sea has definitely taken possession near the village of Mou, of the lands cultivated and habited by the natives ; and the survivors will be able to fish on the spots where their plantations were. This catastrophe took place after the first earthquake, on the night of Easter Sunday. The number of victims — twenty-four—is that invariably given by the English who live south of Lifu, and by the blacks. Mou has been quite ruined by the sea, and by the diluvium which it has left, as the natives say here. Many cocoanut trees have been uprooted and carried away. We reckon about thirty victims, the greater portion of whom are women and children. The editor of the Moniteur also furnishes a letter which had been sent to him for insertion by M. J. Sleigh, the Protestant Missionary at Mou Lifu, It is dated the second April, and is as follows; — “ As I was on my road to Mou, a messenger came to me bearing the news of the first trembling of the |earth in this locality and its environs. He apprised me that at Mou and in the other villages on the coast, the sea had risen in an extraordinary man-

ner, and in retiring had carried away a large number of cottages, md had made several victims, some of them frowned or crushed, while others had been dang' rously wounded. Not far from this, in pursuing our course, we met natives bearing baskets of fish which the sea had thrown on the beach, Thirtylive turtles of different weights had also been captured. “ Mou and Amelewete present a scene of complete desolation. The sea has not yet completely returned to its bed, and recovered the low lands between the beach and the chain of rocks, where, as say the oldest natives, the sea formerly reached. It does not go further than the building of coral raised by Mr Meadows at Mou, and two or three native cottages. Everything has been injured by the sea, which has not even spared the new and strongly-constructed stone-house of the chief Boula.

“ The natives say, all of a sudden they heard the sea roaring in a terrific manner, and, in the clap of a hand, an enormous mass of water came, and precipitated itself on the beach. Immediately the natives ran to the cottages, aroused the rest of the population, who were asleep, and carried away the women and children, flying with them towards the rocks or climbing the adjoining cocoanut trees. They speak of a second inundation, but without doubt this is no other than the inevitable return of the sea when it had begun to be appeased. “ My opinion, deferring to the advance of a better intelligence, is that there must have been a series of volcanic eruptions at the bottom of the sea, at a certain distance from our islands.

“ At Mou, at Amelewete, and at Thoth, men, women, and children have been surprised in the middle of their sleep; several persons have been suddenly killed by the foundering of the houses, which they could not quit soon enough; others, carried away by the waters, have been killed by the beams and trunks of trees carried along with them. Sick, aged, infirm, and little children have perished in default of rescue. The saved men were at the time occupied in the construction of a road in the interior under their chief, Boula. Mothers made heroic efforts to save their children ; but the furious wave pulled them away from their arms. One of them bore a child in each hand and held another in her mouth. Others, of superior height, joined together to save themselves, and tried to keep their heads above water, while at the same time they sought out a way by which they might traverse the furious waters, and gain the neighboring heights. “ A coaster belonging to Mr Meadows, anchored at Mou, broke her cable and was carried on to the reefs, and afterwards brought back again from the coast, not far off from where the sea had taken her, without having suffered, strange to say, either in her works or her cargo. A brave native, a mute from birth, slept in a dwelling built on a little point of land in front of the store ; he had with him a little child ; the house was lifted up by a wave, with those which it contained. The poor mute was drowned, and his body remained for several days undiscovered. The child was thrown in the coaster, and was there rocked by its manoeuvres while tossed about by the waves, and carried with the ship on to the reefs, and then swept on to the beach, without other accident than a smart blow on the head at the moment when the wave began to meet with the ship. The name of Noah (Moses ?) would be perfectly in order for the youngster after such a voyage. A child which was believed to have been lost was discovered on Monday morning in a hole where the waves had left it. to which its cries had drawn those who sought for it. It has since been restored to the mother, and is getting on famously. The number of deaths at Mou are 5, at Amelewete 5, at Thoth 15—in all 25, of whom 10 are adults and 15 children. There are still at Thoth 17 wounded.”