SHIFTING MOUNTAINSIDE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5291, 25 June 1928, Page 3

SHIFTING MOUNTAINSIDE

KILLED 200 IN BRAZIL. FAMILIES BURIED IN HOMES. Sudden shifting of a side of Mount Serat, in the centre of tile city of Santos, State of tao Paulo, Brazil, crashed thousands of tons of earth and rocks without warning on to a section of that place, ,and left a dead and dying toll estimated at more than 200.. Houses and buildings in the. path of the slide were crumpled and buried, their occupapts apparently not discerning the impending disaster until it was top late to escape the'huge avalanche. While 2000 men were engaged in rescue work in the stricken ;a,rea there .were indications that the slide on one side of the mountain had weakened the dirt on still another side, and there was fear that another catastrophe in an adjoining district was impending., Mount with a moderately high peak, is situated practically n the centre of Santos, Brazil’s principal coffee port, with residences and .business buildings; spread around it on three sides. The avalanche occurred just before dawn, at 5.20 o’clock. Although there had been previous warnings of a possible shifting pf the side of the-moiin-ta,in there had been no indication tn at any sucli danger, was immediate. Coming as; it did, it undoubtedly caught many residents of the stricken area asleep. Despatches to the Buenos Aires papers said that sixteen houses were completely crumpled q.nd buried; other estimates were even higher. Between three and four million cubic yards of earth are said to have shifted, completely burying to a depth of upwards of 40 feet an area the bounds of whicli were in places as far distant as a hundred yards from the old base of the mountain.