JAPANESE DISASTER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2628, 4 September 1923, Page 2

JAPANESE DISASTER.

EARTHQUAKE, FIRE AND TIDAL WAVE. CTTTES AND TOWNS DESTROYED. APPALLING LOSS OF LIFE. A great disaster has overtaken Japan. Many cities and towns have been laid waste by earthquake. and fire, and the deaths, it is feared, are over half a million. Great losses of shipping are also reported, while many towns skirting Fujiyama have been wiped out by a landslide. The greater part of Tokio, and, according to some reports, the whole of Yokohama, have been destroyed. Tokio city is in ruins, and thousands arc lleeing into the country. Fukagawa, Senji, Yokosuka, Asaknsa, Kanda, Hongo, Shinagawa, and Ito are among the towns and cities partly or totally- de strayed. It is the greatest disaster in the history of Japan. The roadways of Yokohama are thick with the dead. Hundreds of foreigners were holidaymaking in the ITakone district, where the force of the earthquake shocks were, it is believed, the most severe. Fears are entertained for their safety. There is great anxiety regarding the fate of British and American people, especially in Yokohama, where the tidal wave sent the inhabitants flying, terror-stricken, into the interior, but the majority of the foreigners had their homes on higher land in Yokohama, so they may have essaped. Early estimates show that more than 100,000 people are dead in Tokio. Many small Japanese cities were completely destroyed. It is feared that the deaths exceed half a million. The New York Times received the first word over the cables from Japan. Its representative in Kyoto cabled that he is safe. It is expected that first-hand accounts of the disaster will now begin to arrive.