EARTHQUAKE AT RABAUL

Taranaki Daily News, 29 January 1916, Page 7

EARTHQUAKE AT RABAUL

A NIGHT OF HORROR. "For Heaven's sake," said one of the passengers who arrived in Sydncv by toe Marsiua from Rabaul on the* 17th instant, "don't wake it up. f have been talking and thinking and dreaming of it for a fortnight, and now 1 want to forget, that it ever happened." This was the response to a question asked by a -Daily Telegraph Teportcr regarding the earthquake at Rabaul a fortnight previously. '•There was, no loss of life," the speaker continued, "and the undeveloped state of the country admitted of no serious damage, however violent the disturbance; but the suspense whilst watching the jetty, the cargo shed and other objects by the ship's side disappear from sight and then assume their original positions was something that defies description. It was just about 12 o'clock on New Year's night that the shock was felt. I was below at the time, and as the ship commenced to dance and pig-root like a brumby at a buck-jumping show, I raced upstairs and saw the rest of the passengers on the deck dressed in ki-1 monors, pyjamas, etc., all anxiously seeking the cause of the trouble. My heart sank as a tin-roofed building on which I could have stepped with "ease a moment before disappeared from sight. The earth swallowed it up. The wharf itself moved in every direction. It was bound, on one side by the Marsina, and on the other by the Sumatra. It was this that kept it from swinging away altogether. But if its movements sideways wore hampered by the presence of the boats there was nothing to check its advance seawards.

j "There were a number of darkies on the wharf when it first darted outwards, and, startled out of their wits, they sprinted for the land. But no matter how fast they ran they made no progress. Despite the seriousness of our own position, we could not refrain from urging the terrified niggera to make a dash for it, although their legs were moving as fast as Nature would permit. "No one regretted when the rumbling showed signs of abatement. As things turned out, we were perfectly safe on board, but at the time everybody insisted on thinking that something not according to the schedule would happen on the Marsina. It was an anxious period," concluded the spcakler, "and for my part I would prefer to juggle with the landslides themselves rather than again stay on board waiting for the worst to happen." Other passengers stated that the tinroofed shed referred to came to the surface again, but that during its exploits a quantity of -nee, beer and other goods got angled together, and presented a picture second only to the dishevelled condition of affairs outside. The exact extent of the damage on land was the submerging of the causeway between Mutupi and the mainland, and a severe shaking for a number of houses and buildings. It as stated also that a further shock was expected by the residents of Rabaul. Possibly the disturbance recorded at the Riverview Obseravtory is the one that was expected. Father Pigott stated last week that the instruments on Thursday had recorded the biggest disturbance since the Riverview Observatory had been established —greater beyond all comparison than the one registered on New Year's Day.