THE EARTHQUAKE IN CASHMERE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1380, 18 August 1885, Page 3

THE EARTHQUAKE IN CASHMERE.

Files of the Times of India contain fuller accounts of the disastrous earthquakes which occurred in the Cashmere districts of India between May 30th and June 4lh. No less than 40 separate shocks of earthquake occurred. The effect had been to drive thousands of people from their homes. Bumiipss in numbers of villages had been suspended, the houses were all empty, and rivers were lined with boats moored to tlu ir banks, in which men, women and children, and servants, rich and poor alike, made themselves as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. Earth, quakes occur in Cashmere more Irequently than in other parts of India, but the succession of shocks lately experienced was altogether unprecedented. There is one sad story told. One of the very small villages, where visitors go for a few months in the summer, containing only 26 inhabitants, had every house levelled with the ground, and 23 out of the 25 residents killed ; the two remaining inhabitants (men) were found engaged digging graves for the rest, one large grave lor the men, and one for the women and children. The shock of May 30th was felt mainly in the west end of the Jhelum Valley, the area being 30 miles long and 20 miles wide, including two towns—namely, Sopur and Baramulla. Of the former three-fourths were destroyed. The latter was totally destroyed. The deaths were about 400 in both towns. Fifteen miles from Baramulla, one of the most beautiful buildings in Cashmere, was in ruins. It was the Buddhist temple at Pattan, which was built in the fifth century. Half of it, consisting of massive stones, had been thrown down, and the remainder displaced. Water and mud had been thrown up in several places. Several villages in this part of the country bad been entirely destroyed. Land slips had occurred in some places, and a large piece of cultivated land had sunk 20ft, while huge rocks had risen out of the ground. Colonel St. John, the resident at Simla, estimates the total loss of human life at 3081. The destruction caused by the earthquake appeared to be confined to the country bordering on the Jhelum river for a distance of 80 miles. Ihe greatest loss of life occurred in the pastoral villages ot Baramulla, where people live in two-storeyed huts, dwelling themselves in the upper floor, and keeping cattle below. Upwards of 25,000 sheep and goats and 8000 cattle had been destroyed, and 70,000 houses had been ruined.