AN EARTHQUAKE

Hokitika Guardian, 27 December 1930, Page 5

AN EARTHQUAKE

SHOCK IN ARGENTINE, TOWN REPORTED TO BE DESTROYED. [United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.] NEW YORK, December 24. News from Salta (Argentine) states that thirty-five were killed and seventy injured in an earthquake which rocked the State of La Poma early on Wednesday. Fragmentary despatches says that the tntire town o-'f La Pama has been destroyed. 38 BODIES RECOVERED. VANCOUVER, Dec, 25. Thirty-eight bodies have been recovered from the debris of the ruined town of La Poma. An earthquake shook Northern Argentine. TJndulatory shocks moved from east to west. Great crevices appeared in the majority of the buildings, which collapsed. The survivors laboured beneath tottering walk and alongside half fallen structures, seeking the bodies of relatives. Most of, the population of three thousand must live in tents for several weeks. The military have been sent to take charge of the rescue work and -t* render first aid. Oniy two policemen w«re on duty v/hen the quake occurred, and th population were thrown into the utmost confusion. Heavy rains, accompanied by an ( electrical storm, broke over the ruins and hindered the search for the dead and injured, and inflicted g,reat difficulties upon the rescue parties seeking to reach the stricken area. The women and children among the survivors kept at a safe distance fiom the tottering buildings, while the main population sought to holster such structures as were not destroyed entirely. / . . The widespread damage caused by the earthquake was not revealed until daylight, when it was found that many edifices had been made insecure. Many women were restrained with difficulty during the night from entering the mins of their dwellings to seek missing members of their families.