EARTHQUAKE’S TOLL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 April 1939, Page 8

EARTHQUAKE’S TOLL

SAN FRANCISCO VISITATION. Nature in her most awful mood struck a devastating blow in California on April 18, 1906. At 5 a.m. on that grim day a terrible earthquake shook San Francisco. An appalling fire completed the work of destruction. The damage to property was estimated at £60,000,000, while—which was far more serious and lamentable several thousand lives were lost. The true number of the dead was never exactly known. Bodies continued to be found amongst the wreckage three months after the date of the earthquake. The disturbance was accompanied by a loud roaring or rumbling sound which quite drowned the noise of falling buildings and the piteous cries of the wounded. The rumbling and violent shaking of the earth continued for eight or nine seconds. Houses cracked and fell. Many entirely collapsed, especially in the poor quarter of the town, where the greatest'loss of life occurred. The streets were torn up, and two storeys of the Valentia Hotel disappeared into a gaping fissure, which then closed over the wreckage. Fire soon broke out in the ruined town and completed the work of destruction. Fourteen other towns in California shared the calamitous effects of the earthquake, and Los Angeles, ■ nearly five hundred miles distant, was visited by two shocks.