CHINESE WAR

Hokitika Guardian, 31 July 1930, Page 5

CHINESE WAR

CHINESE HAPPENINGS

.United Tress Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) ;■ (Received this day at 9.40 a.m.) ‘ SHANGHAI, July 30. While European sources of intelligence are astonishingly quiet on the subject iof\ Changsha, Japanese reports indicate twelve Government offices iwere destroyed by a fire started b.v Communists; a Iso practically all the Christian church buildings. There is no news of the fate of the missionaries,, who possibly are in biding, or perhaps have been carried off for; ransom.

dHANGSHA DEBACLE

LOOTING AND BUTCHERY

(Received this day at 11 a.m.. SHANGHAI, July 30. A terrible story of death and destruction is told in the latest despatches from 'Changsha, which followed the capture of the city by the Communists army which since Monday lias been looting, burning and kKI ling, anjd generally has reduced the' , place to ruin. All Government and practically all foreign mission property was burned to the ground, shops and business premises destroyed. Provincial officials were brutally beheaded and thousands of the city’s population are fleeing for their; lives.

The city was still in flames on the night: of 29th July.

The killed are estimated at thousands.

The Communist commander directed a systematic pillage. A section of the army was detailed in pursuit of Hodden's defeated troops. , It is : believed all foreigners are safe except three missionaries who declined /the protection of foreign gunboats.