QUAKE DISASTER

Hokitika Guardian, 23 April 1928, Page 1

QUAKE DISASTER

SH OCKTNG PA ITT 1C FLAPS

(United Press Association.-—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.)

SOFIA. April 20. Details emerging from devastated Bulgaria show that it was the most terrible earthquake in European memory. There were fifty severe shocks today, that making IDO shocks in three days. It is now definitely established that 120 have been killed, and 400 injured. Tfc is impossible to calculate the number of victims beneath the ruins, while a census is difficult.

Terrified populations are scattered everywhere. .Many have lost their reason, and are wandering demented through the countryside. The entire population are victims of panic. They are expecting the end of the world. Even in Sofia the populace spent last night in the parks and fields, refusing to return to the houses to-day.

The historic .city of Phillippopolis is laid waste, just as it was in the year ISIS. Whole si reels of houses there have collapsed, and in the crash of masonry the principal streets are obliterated, and the railway station is an unrec-og-n'Fable mass of broken bricks and twisted rails. There was a terrible scene at a Hospital. Frantic patients foughi'. to reach the windows while the building was rocking, and then threw themselves to tile ground. Many became insane and rushed into (lie streets, shouting hysterically. The desolation is widespread. Fifteen towns, villages and hamlets have disappeared in a mass of splintered debris.

The earthquakes were accompanied by a strange thunder below the earth and a rustling, whistling sound in the

People in the streets, as they were rushing for safety, were struck down by bricks and cornices from big huild-

Eires broke out in Phillippopols, and soon -gigantic (lames were devouring the ruins.

The quakes have continued throughout the night at intervals of fifteen minutes, sometimes swaying the earth, and at other times making sharp shakes beneath the feet.

Fresh buildings collapsed with each ■ hock.

The public buildings, schools, workshops, factories and railway stations (trashed amid a terrifying rumble, which gave way to the shrieks of the wounded and the dying.

Panic stricken people j°vpry\vhe.ne poured through the streets in a human tide, sobbing and choking in dust smoke.

At Papazii. a few miles distant from P'hillipr.mpolis. ten children 'were trapped in a burning school, and were incinerated. There was a terrible contrast to the village Sotehelovo, where the people 'sealed from the railway connecting Phillippolis. The railway was thrown ip like a ton lino. Another portion if the line sunk to a depth of two Vet.

A panic broke out among the prisoners tit the Zagora Prison, and they nude frantic attempts to escape. All finds of strange phenomena arc ao•otnpa living Hie latest disturbances, itul have added to the horror. Hugo -basins have appeared in the fields and ■on(1 wavs, and in some eases they are Jowly closing again. Many are Ciimpng in motor cars, wagons and tents' tnd open spaces. There are continual processions tround ruined outskirts, chanting exliatory psalms, and calling on till to -(‘pent of their sins. The King of Bulgaria. the Prime Minister, and tile item,hers of the Cabinet- are aiding in die relief, which is greatly hampered iy the genera! disorganisation of traffic.

The Paris. Constantinople and Sim>lon express are unable to run. and there is the danger of a famine in tinny districts, which were short of cod before the shocks.

The superstitious people arc accusing the Government, saying that it challenged the Divine wrath by bolding Parliamentary Sessions on flood F ridny.

SHOCKS CONTINUE. SOFIA, April 21. A third series of -Bulgarian earthquake shocks occurred last night, osp'oeially affecting a town forty-four miles from Phillippopolis, named Haskovo, which largely escaped in the former shocks.

'Plte tremors continued all night. Numerous houses were damaged. The population was already camping out, and so escaped.