EARTHQUAKE IN CALIFORNIA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 126, 28 May 1872, Page 2

EARTHQUAKE IN CALIFORNIA.

o Visalia, May 29. — Reports from Lone Pine, via Porterville, state that town to be in ruins. Twenty-three people were killed, and about thirty wounded. Five hundred heavy shocks occurred in thirty hours, aud about fifty houses were shaken down. Visalia, March 30. — From Colonel Whipple, who has just arrived by stage from Lone Pine, we learn the following particulars of the terrible earthquake which visited that section on the 26th inst. About 2.30 a.m. the inhabitants of Lone Pine were awakened by a loud explosion, followed by a terrible upheaval of the earth from south to north. In an instant the whole house was in ruins, not a building being left standing. Colonel Whipple, who was iv the second story of an adobe bouse, states that he had just time to jump from his bed and get to the doorway when the house appeared to crumble to pieces beneath him, and he was buried among the ruiDs. He succeeded in extricating himself from the debris, suffering from several painful but not dangerous wounds. The scene which ensued beggars description. Screams and groans rent the air in all directions. Nearly the whole populace of the town was buried beneath its ruins ; cries for help and screams of pain from the wounded filled the air, while from the ruins those who escaped were calling for help to rescue fathers, brothers, wives and children, in a manner agonising to hear. The first shock was followed in quick succession by three others. Over three hundred distinct shocks were felt between half-past two and sunrise; in fact, the earth was in a constant shake and tremble for over three hours. A chasm was opened extending over thirty-five miles down the valley, ranging from three inches to forty feet in width. Rocks were torn from their places and rolled down into the valley. Everywhere through the valley are seen evidences of the terrible convulsion of natnre. Cerro Gordo was badly damaged, many buildings cracked, some few thrown down ; no persons badly injured. Swansea was also totally destroyed; buildings all down to the ground, and furnaces all thrown down. Colonel Tregalles, of the Swansea works, was killed. No other casualty reported as yet.

The Superintendent of the Swansea Company sent 20 men to Lone Pioe, and 16 were sent from Cerro Gordo to assist in extricating the bodies from the ruins. All accounts agree in placing Lone Pine over For remainder of news see fourth page.

the centre of commotion. Before each shock could b 9 heard an explosion which sounded immediately beneath their feet. Over six hundred distinct shocks were felt within fifty-eight hours after the first. There is much destitution among the inhabitants of Lone Pine and its vicinity, many having lost all but life. Several distinct shocks were felt in this city last night, and are still coming from the southeast. Persons anticipate finding of immense chasms in the mountains east of us as soon as the snow disappears enough to admit of investigation. In the vicinity of Mount Whitney residents describe the explosion as of a park of heavy artillery fired beneath their feet, which ran along the mountain range, north and south, until lost in the distance. Rumors of a volcano in active operation being seen from the summit of the Greenhood mountain, sixty miles south-east of here, are in circulation. The Indians in that vicinity have all left, fearing the recurrence of a general convulsion of nature, which, according to tradition occurred there some hundreds of years ago, and created what is now, known as Owens River Valley, but what was before a chain of mountains.