THE CATASTEOPHB AT MESSINA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLIII, Issue XLIII, 29 January 1909, Page 2

THE CATASTEOPHB AT MESSINA.

.NARRATIVES BY SURVIVORS. (Received 0.20 n.m.) FREMANTLE, Friday. News by the English mail of the Earthquake Catastrophe in Italy states that Italian people in the various towns visited by the earthquake were asleep at the time of the shock, which came without warning a little after fivo o'clock in tho morning. Tho shock lasted over 30 seconds, snd literally swung the buildings out of the perpendicular, and let them erasu in a heap of ruins. Then camo fires and explosions of gasometers, and finally a huge tidal wave of liquid mud, which swept over the quays and engulfed the lowlying portions of tbts towns, drowning the miserable beings pinned beneath thg mined buildings. This is why no satisfactory estimate of the probable deaths has yet been mad*. Here is a typical story told by a woman who reached Palermo from Messina: — "It was a hellish scene. Wt» were still sleeping, when wo were suddenly awakened by a strange noiss. The windows were all rattling, and doors wero burst open with a bang. Some of us were thrown out of bed by the violence of the shock. A deluge of raiu was falling, and it was very dark. 'Terremoto! Terremotol' we shrieked, all shivering wth terror. "Scarcely half-clothed, I fled witli my brother and sister, but lost them in tho street. Other people were i running to and fro crying desperately, shouting for help, and invoking the Madonna and the Saints. All around us were crumbling walls', cra_h'n» i windows, and splintering woodwe'rk. Water came up to our knees, and near the sea front all the steamers wero flooded with muddy water, which roared terribly, and battered everything with incredible violence." A young doctor at Messina, named Aliotto Rossi, who was there during tho earthquake, tells tho following story: — "1 rose on Monday morning, intending to leave Messina by an early train. It was still dark, and I was waiting ready to start when tho profound silence which precedes the dawn was broken by an extraordinary noise. I can best describe it as like the bursting of a thousand bombs. This was followed by a rushing torrential rain and then thero was a sinister whistling as if thousands of redkot iron rods were liissing in icy water. I did not Tealisc what was happening, until suddenly the violent, but rhythmic, movements of the surrounding walls mado me _tg______w_ t__o __-^____l fact t____.fc =____ cartiiquajco was in progress around me. Splintered glass fell thickly, and tno roof burst, giving off thick clouds of choking dust, which added to the horror of tho situation, while tho ground was shaken by an nary double movement of rismg aad falling, which had the peculiar effect of making me imagine I had been seized suddenly ill, "For a moment I was in a dazed condition, till the thunder of falling stones from tho crumbling walls mado me realise that if I was to eseape_ with my life there was not ft mi ment to be lest. I rush. 1 in;.) \ room where my mother anu s'ster slept, and succeeded, with tho help of a strong cord, in rescuing not only them, but 36 otlier people in tho dwelling, who had given themselves up for lost. .Then, with the help of passing soldiers, I dragged out several women and children from under- the tottering walls of the half-destroyed palaces, which soon after came down with a crash. "There were scones .of indescrib* able horror. It was difficult to see in the dust-laden half-darkness. But ar every turn one could not help noticing the ghastly spectacle of human limbs sticking out from the mass of ruins. Frenzied relatives, with bare bleeding hands, sought to dig out ■their dear ones from under the fallen masonry, though oiten the walls, which had not altogether collapsed camo down suddenly and buried them with their dead relatives in a common grave. All the while shrieks and imprecations wero heard from tho miserable, raving fugitives, who rushed half-nak«d and bleeding through the streets, appearing liko Spectres in thg lurid atmosphere, which began to be lit up by fires that broke out among th© ruins. "Tho water pipes having been broken, the sufferings were intensi.fled by lack of drinking water. Wo were driven to assuage our burning thiitet by rinsing our mouths with sea water, wherewith we washed even our wounds. All this time thero raged a most furious rain storm, which camo down like a waterspout, deluging the ruints, and even threatening tho unfortunate fugitives with dnowning in the mire left by the receding sea. "Fiaally wa succeeded "in reaching tHo English steamer Ebro." Most of tho fugitives who havo given accounts of the catstetropho were too much under the impression, of terror, and too full of their agonised search for relatives who were lost, to give any detailed narratives.