SAKURASHIMA ERUPTION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 16, 19 January 1914, Page 5

SAKURASHIMA ERUPTION.

REPORT FROM THE EMBASSY.

(By Electric Telegraph—Copyright] [United Press Association.] (Received 8.50 a.m.) London, January 18. The Japanese Embassy states, that half the houses in Saknrashxma were destroyed. It is believed that all the inhabitants except 200 escaped. Twenty-four were killed and wounded in Kagoshima.

HEART-RENDING SCENES.

London, January 17

The Times correspondent says that the exaggerated reports as to the damage caused by the Japanese earth-’ quake are causing great comment. It is officially announced that only ten were killed, and seventeen injured.

At Kagoshima, volcanic ashes .lie three feet deep over the whole town, whilst Sakuroshima is devastated. All animals were burnt where they stood.

The death roll of inhabitants does not exceed 200, the villagers having time to escape before the bouses were overwhelmed by the lava streams. Ouo woman, after returning to rescue her baby, snatching it up, and carrying it to the train, which she boarded after a fierce struggle, on arriving at Vumamato, found that it wasn’t her baby. Her distress was so great that she went insane. Eye witnesses describe the panicstricken refugees’ struggles at the railway station as being like wolves lighting for food.