INDIA.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 810, 28 May 1853, Page 3

INDIA.

The Singapore Free Press gives the following account of an earthquake that happened in the Moluccas, in November last : "On the 16th Novetnber, about twenty minutes to eight in the morning, a heavy vertical oscillation of the ground was felt at Banda Neira, which soon changed into a rapidly increasing undulation from the north-east to the south-east, which lasted for more than five minutes. Every one left his house ;- to remain standing was impossible ; people were obliged to take a firm hold of something, or throw themselves on the ground. In the morning a slight shower of rain fell, bat otherwise, the weather was not unfavourable. "At the first shock, nearly all the houses were thrown down or very much "shattered. The Government buildings, the Church, the officers' houses in the encampment, and the warehouses suffered the greatest injury. The Chinese quarter was a heap of ruins — the native village on the Zonnegat was laid waste. ThePapenberg fell partly in, and two bamboo houses upon it disappeared; and on Great Banda the houses cfjthe park keepers, the outhouses, tnd smoking houses for the nutmegs, underwent the same fate; ererything there was also thrown down or greatly injured. Nothing is visible of the village Lontheir but a heap of ruins. Selmu was terribly shattered, while detached pieces of rock lay everywhere scattered around. There weie no deaths, however, to lament, and only some peisons were slightly bruised or wounded. "But the misfortune did not stop here. About eight o'clock a disturbance of the sea (Zeebeving)occurred, which filled every heart with fear and dismay, and caused every one to fly to the highest ground. In quick succession the bay filled and emptied, and at times it appeared to be only a little river. " The ship Atiat al Rachman, laden with rice, lying in the roads, twice touched the ground, after, like H.M. brig de Haai, which had anchored the day previous having been driven backwards and forwards a number of times ; but this seaquake increased in a frightful manner and thrice overwhelmed Great Banda and Neira with the largest rollers; on the last place they reached several feet high in the houses, and burst the doors open. These huge waves formed in the Zonnegat and in the channel of Lontheir, and ran so high that they beat over Fort Nassau and reached the foot of the hill on which Fort Belgica is built, carrying everything with them in their reflux, but at the same time leaving behind a quantity of fishes* The prahus in the roads were, driven amongst and against each other ; and carried to and from the shore : they foundered or drove in the Zonnegat where they struck on the shore i only a few could save themselves by flight. These prahus belonged to the Saru and Key islands, and Ceram, and a part of their crews, finding themselves on shore, sought shelter in one of the sheds on the old pier, but they could not withstand the force of the rollers, and in a moment they were torn out of their place of shelter and driven seawards, there miserably to perish. It is estimated that sixty men lost their lives in this way." The report subsequently states that these frightful natural phenomena had lasted for several days, during which time there was scarcely an hour in which the ground did not heave and shake in the heaviest manner. The accounts from the Islands Bosengim and Ay had been even more tragical. In Neiva there are not more than two habitable houses remaining. Other islands had more or less felt the oscillation, accompanied in some cases with issues of smoke and ioud subterranean noises.