THE EARTHQUAKE AT CHIOS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2563, 8 June 1881, Page 2

THE EARTHQUAKE AT CHIOS.

M, Bernard de Chivery writes to the “Voltaire” from Constantinople,where he is staying with his little daughter—the sole survivor of a family of six— Madame de Chivry and three other children having lost their lives —to the following effect regarding the above calamity : —“ The first shock, which occurred just as my wife and I were opening our letters from Paris, was very violent. Our house oscillated like a pendulum, the piano rolled against the window, and a large Louis XIII clock fell prone upon the floor. My wife fainted and I slipped from my chair amid a shower of books, nic-nacks, etc. My first thoughts on springing to my feet were for my wife, and I had just succeeded in reviving her when a second shock brought the already shaken house tumbling to the ground in a mass of ruins, a large beam striking my wife on the forehead, and breaking my left arm. The children, who were in an upper storey, were crushed under the debris of two houses—my little Louise, who was in the garden with her nurse, escaping, like the latter, with ■ nothing more serious, luckily, than some severe bruises. What most struck me were the cries of the inhabitants and animals, and Ido not remember ever having heard such a terrifying din. When I succeeded in extracting myself from the ruins of our residence I could scarcely believe what my eyes told rac, that the whole of the city had crnmbled'to the ground. While standing looking about me I felt the soil gradually rise beneath my feet several times, and it almost seemed as though I were on board a ship. My arm caused me great suffering ; I felt that my reason was deserting me, and I was about to run away, dominated by the idea that the people whoso thousand cries I heard were seeking my life, when the sight of Louise and her nurse brought mo to myself, and I took in a thought of the nature of calamity that had overtaken me. The shoeks continued, and we had to get away from the neighborhood of the houses, whose walls kept falling every instant with a dull, cracking noise which resembled the deafening sonnd of several milralleuses more than any other to which I can compare it. I passed a night of torture in the cemetery with the child and nurse. The next day, when I sought to revisit my house, I could not even find my street again, the confused mass of ruins totally obliterating every trace of it. Burnt by the sun, dying of hunger, my little daughter .almost dying I made ray way towards the coast, off which I was lucky enough to find a fishing-vessel lying. I made despairing signs, attracted the attention of the fishermen, and was taken on board the boat to a large Turkish ship that had been sent to our assistance.”