CHILE’S TRAGEDY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 January 1939, Page 5

CHILE’S TRAGEDY

TWENTY THOUSAND DEAD IN FOUR CITIES

terrible earthquake HAVOC. TREMENDOUS TASK FACING RESCUE WORKERS. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. NEW YORK. January 27. Stories of rich communities destroyed. thousands killed and hundreds of thousands facing the threat of disease and famine are told in the still fragmentary reports from Chile’s earthquake zone reaching New York today. Deaths may reach 20,000 in four cities alone. Official estimates of the dead are as follows: At Cauquennes, 5000; at Concepcion, 3000; at San Rosendo, 2000; and at Chilian. 10,000; and from a hostof villages and small towns the toll is mounting hourly.

Following an aerial inspection by Government officials of the devastated areas, which they described at “Dantesque,” the complete evacuation and at least temporary, if not the permanent, abandonment of Chilian and Concepcion have been ordered.

A long parade of automobiles and vehicles of all descriptions carrying survivors has begun a trek to the north over dangerous cracked roads. Other survivors are being evacuated by sea. Meanwhile a pitifully-small army of rescue workers is toiling against heavy odds in almost unbearable heat and with insufficient drinking Water, to bury the dead, aid the injured and those imprisonned in ruined buildings and otherwise to restore order from indescribable chaos.

Among the items of serious permanent damage is the tearing up of coalmining districts, where diggings are in a dangerous condition and the miners' homes obliterated.

Argentine, French, German and American air liners are co-operating in helping the Government to establish contact with the devastated area. An offer of aid from President Roosevelt has been received in Santiago. A United States Army bomber is expected to leave Panama carrying gangrene and typhoid serums and concentrated foods. STRICKEN CITIES. NO BRITISH LIVES LOST. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day. 10.30 a.m.) RUGBY, January 27. According to reports from the British Ambassador at Santiago no British lives-were lost at Concepcion or Emuco.