THE MESSINA EARTHQUAKE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 609, 8 October 1913, Page 5

THE MESSINA EARTHQUAKE.

•*■ SCENE OF DESOLATION. DETAILS OF DISASTER. By Telegraph.—Press Association.—Copyriaut Received Tuesday, 93.5 p.m. London, Tuesday. The Daily Chronicle's Messina correspondent furnishes a vivid description of the desolation existing. The Government a year ago voted a hundred thousand pounds to repair the ravages of the great earthquake but the contractors have not started. Wharves are still sunken; the quay sides shattered, and the parade encumbered with rubbish due io a 1.30-ft tidal wave. Nevertheless the natural advantages of such a trade port are already greater than before the disaster. The Cathedral, whereof the gem-laden alvar alone cost .v.! (10,000 is in ruins; twenty-two pillars of the Temple Neptune and Churybdis lie smashed on the pavements. Nightwatchmen, armed with revolvers, guard the ruins, but many mosaics and statues have been plundered. Twenty-seven million sterling of tr^a-

sure has already been recovered from the ruins, including eighty thousand pounds in cash on the premises of one small firm. Few Sicilians invest, in the bank; they peter to conceal their hoards in sackfuls in coins and Oriental bonds. Exquisite jewel and pearls have been found. There are thirty thousand bodies unrecovered. iuany that vrere dis'nterrec: were I'hcekingly carbonised, in other cases there were unmistakable sipjns ;hat the victims survived on the chance of food for days and weeks. Thirteen hundred bodies were buried in a tomb TOO feet ivy .">0 feet.