AN INCIDENT OF THE ISCHIA EARTHQUAKE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 6, 8 November 1883, Page 4

AN INCIDENT OF THE ISCHIA EARTHQUAKE.

Miss Wright, whose parents reside kt Brighton Grove, Blackpool, has sent a letter in which she records an extraordinary escape while staying with the Rev. Mr Bariff and family at Ischia. She says, after stating they retired to rest all right, “ When the earthquake occurred we had a most wonderful escape. The ceiling came right down on our heads, and it was so heavy that I put up my hands to support it. Miss Mabel was in bed, and I eat between her and a table on which there rested a large stone ; and on my bed there had fallen a great piece of flag which had covered it. If I had been in bed I should certainly have been erushed to death. Our dressing-table fell through the floor, and the next room to ours, and two others adjoining it, fell through the rooms below. I suppose the earthquake lasted fifteen seconds, but to Miss Mabel and I who sat in the room with the stones on our heads, it seemed much longer. It was a terrible sight, and the peoples shrieks were dreadful. At first I thought Mabel was killed until she spoke; aud when all was over we crawled out from under a ceiling and under a table. All was darkness, for our lamp had fallen off the table and gone out. Some way or other we managed to get down into the garden. We thought everyone was killed except ourselves, and we did not see any one at first. A few minutes afterwards, however, we saw that all were safe save Charlie. He had just gone to bed If be had been in the drawing-room ten minutes longer he would have been safe. lie was found dead with his night-dress on, so he could only just have got into bed when it happened. We stayed in the vineyards all night. It was a very dark night, but for all that we coulcl see dense clouds of dust rising from the fallen houses. Oh, it was a terrible night, for the mountains were falling through the night, and the people shrieking—it was something awful."