JAPANESE DISASTER.

Hokitika Guardian, 12 September 1923, Page 2

JAPANESE DISASTER.

AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION, JAPAN SHAKEN AGAIN. WASHINGTON, Sept. 10. A message from Tokio, via tho Radio states that a renewed earthquake shock shook Japan yesterday. The tremors added to the people's terror, hut only slightly increased the havoc already wrought. Relief workers are asserting every effort to combat disease. Nevertheless the dangers of epidemics of typhoid and dysc-ntry are becoming grave. Many refugees are going mad as tho result of their experiences. Twelve foreigners who escaped from Yokahama are already hopelessly insane from having had to stand helplessly by and observe tho tortures oi five childron burmnn to ('oath. Reconstruction will take years. It is comparable to the task of rebuilding the devastated areas of France. Tokio’s business centre, seven miles long and two miles wide, is now mainly ashes. Reports show that a two hundred mile radius around Yokohama was swept bv landslides along the coast. All the hotels on the cliffs toppled into the sea, as though pushed by a giant hand.

FEVER IN TOKIO. WASHINGTON, Sept. 10. General Leonard Wood, cabling to the State Dejiartmenf from Manilla, asks for a million dollars’ credit immediately for the relief of the Japanese. He says that a severe fever has broken out in Tokio. The American Red Cross I' mid has passed a vote of four million dollars.

MEDICAL All) S.O.S. WASHINGTON, Sejit. 10. In reporting the epidemic of fever in Tokio.'Ambassador Woods has cabled the Government that it is imperative that a million dollars of Red Cross fends he placed immediately at the disposal of the Relief Committee in Julian. for the quick purchase of medical supplies and food in nearby markets. ESCAPEE’S AWFUL PICTURE. OSAKA, Sept. 10. It is now established that the major portion of the Tokio fatalities occurred in one place, namely the Military Clothing Depot at Honjowaro, where over thirty thousand perished. The actual circumstances leading to this terrible tragedy are now described by a young man, named Kawashima, who miraculously escaped with his life, and who reached Osaka to-day. He said lie rushed to take refuge in a great upon space at the Military Clothes Depot, of over ten acres, enclosed by brick walls. ()n reaching there, lie found tons of thousands of people already gathered. Late in the afternoon a terrible east wind brought with it burning flames. It became so hot that "even in this wide rendezvous the hair on the men s faces was actually burned. Naturally there was a rush westward in tho enclosed space, causing a tremendous stampc-de. in which thousands died, being trampled by the flow of men. This human cyclone actually blow Kawashima to a point where there was a pool of water breast deep. He plunged in, covering bis bead with a wadded cushion. So tremendous was the volume of the converging flame and the showers c.f great pieces of burning wood and iron, that mnnv thousands of people were roasted alive. Kawashima did not know what happened till the next morning, when he was rescued troops, together with twenty or thirty others. The whole compound was covered with nothing but half-burned corpses. WILL YOKOHAMA BE RE-BUTI.T. OSAKA, Sept. 10. A movement i* afoot to incorporate Yokohama, when rebuilt, into a Greater Toki". Another movement mooted is to create a jnrt at Shimizu, now the principle tea export centre. Many favour this in preference to rebuilding Yokohama, where the question of foreign perpetual leases has lieen a longstanding irritation to the Japanese. The American destroyer Whipple, the ~nlv foreign warship to enter the innermost harbour of Tokio, took aboard to the steamer “Empress of Australia all foreigners from the Imperial Hotel, which has been taken over for military purposes. The “Empress” conveyed them to Kobe. . ~ Very few foreigners are left in lokio.