The Ischia Earthquake.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 4, Issue 254, 28 September 1883, Page 2

The Ischia Earthquake.

— ♦ — HABEOWING DETAILS.

The Naples correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph supplies a full account of the disaster by which the town of Ischia was laid m ruins; Writing under date of August Ist, he says : — On the evening of Saturday, 18th July, the salons of the different hotels and pensions were even gayer and fuller than usual, as it is common for persons detained elsewhere by business during the week to rejoin their friends and families from the Saturday to Monday. Thus, on that fatal evening it was m the midst of music, laughter, and gay social enjoyment, that the terrible voice of the earthquake made itself heard without apparent warning. It fifteen seconds all was horror, darkness, and ruin. On the victims of the calamity the effect seems invariably to have been an utter paralysation of will. Many even of those who were unhurt remained,as if stupefied, near the ruins, or went feebly to and fro, wailing out "Have you seen my husband?" "Where are my children?" or "brother," or "sister," as the case might be. Darkness and thick clouds of sulphurous dust concealed the extent of the disaster from the miserable survivors, all the lights of the town being extinguished ; but for many hours the cries and lamentations of the halfburied victims sounded dolefully m the ears of those who could neither see nor help them. Unhappily, the Telegraph Office was one of the first buildings to be utterly wrecked, which occasioned serious delay m obtaining assistance from the main land, while several of the roads across the island-^-that leading to the town of Ischia, for example --was so much damaged as to be for a time impassable. The actual moment of the explosion has been variously stated. The clock m the Sala Belhazzi stopped at twenty ' minutes past nine, but it is generally agreed that the real time was fifteen or twenty minutes later— a singular detail, which I think has not been generally noticed. The play, which was being performed by a company of come* dians m the temporary little woodeu theatre of Casamiociola, had for one of its chief incidents the fright of the characters about an alarm of earthquake, and the actors were jestiag with the terrible visitant when it really came. The theatre, however, with its slight wooden walls and canvas roof, claimed no victims, and except some I contusions caused by an alarm of fire when the lamps fell, I believe all its occupants escaped uninjured. Casamicciola is the great centre of horror and desolation. The Minister ordered quicklime to be freely used wherever the ruins were of such a nature as to give no rational hope of recovering living victims. The ruins, even where they are thirty or forty feet deep, are not a compact mass, it must be remembered, and from innumerable fissures such deadly and pestilential vapors began to issue as to compromise the lives of the survivors, and especially of those engaged m the work of excava* tion. Wonderful rescues have been madr. Two young-women who were found on the Tuesday afternoon could only make their whereabouts known by means of a faint tapping, hardly audible to their rescuers. The masonry of their room had fallen so as to fornr an arch over the bed m which they lay. The mother of the younger lay dead «at a few yards distance, and they had remained helpless m the neighborhood of the putrifying corpse from Saturday until Tuesday afternoon, with no nourishment but one plum and one pear which they found near them. A volnme could be easily be filled with the , inoidents of this memorable, catastrophe. The salon of the Piooola Sentinella &as fuller than usual, owing to the attraction of an English amateur pianjat, who until that night had always refused to play. A small roll of music was between his knees, while on the top of the broken piano were Liszt's " Rhadsodie Hongroise" and a small volume of " The Beauties of Shakespeare." This was Shown to me immediately afterwards. One lady finding the stair of her house gone, although the walls stood, tied her infant between two pillows and threw it into the road, whe^e it was found unhurt : but m attempting to lower herself by means of sheets she fell and broke her leg, In another house, two young children found fragments of masonry falling On the bed en which they lay, the little bqy of five managed to extricate his baby sister, and then both children went to sleep again, and wre so found quite unharmed by the Carbineers. The Islander and the Neapolitans who know the place well put the dead at seven thousand, but so far as the authorities have been able to verify as yet, the real approximate number of victims appears to be five thousand, inclusive of Cassamicci ila, Forio, and Lacoo Ameno, The survivors, who have m most oases lost everything, also number thousands, and their need is Tery ur« gent.