The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-01-12
THE EARTRoUAKG IN JAPAN.
The Terrible Disaster Does Not Inter
fere with the Peoples CheerfuIness.
From the London Times.

ler9 WITH Inc P6ODle CA0ertulueSS.
From the London Times.
The broad features of this almost unpre~
cedented CONFUSION have been before the
world for a month, but general statements
and large figures do not bring home to the
mind the real magnitude of the calamity.
Only details can give vividuess to the
picture, and these are now supplied with a
fullness which will be found to destroy even
the obscuring effects of distance. The GEM
ter of dis urbance was in the most densely
populated part of thickly peopled country,
and over ali area of some 500 square miles
the severity Of the shocks was such that
nothing could Withstand them. Double that
area was very violently, though less de-
structively shaken, and even in the capital,
10 miles distant, the earth movements
were Of kind to which there has been no
parallel since the great Yedo earthquake
thirty-seven yeas ago.
In Osaka, seYenty-five miles to the south
west, the horizontal movement of the earth
is said to have amounted to four inches, and
together with great destruction Of property
there was serious loss of life. But in the
Nagoya-Gifu plain or basin destruction
was wholesale and complete. Three hundred
thousand people have been suddenly
rendered homeless, 5000 have persisted
either by the fall of buildings, by the fires
which in japan are the invariable concomi-
tants of earthquakes, or by the various
accidents to which men are subject when
the whole physical conformation of the
region they live in is distorted and
changed.
There are 10000 wounded and manned
many of whom will doubtless go to swell
the list Of deaths, while 1t seems nearly GER
tain that the returns are still far from COM
plete. Eighty-four thousand houses have
been totally destroyed, 10000 more have
been more or less wrecked, and TO these
have TO be added another 5000 destroyed
by FIRE Over an area of hundreds Of square
miles every work of mans hands has been
| reduced to ruin, with the exception of al
occasional temple or feudal castle of quite
unusual solidity. Railways have been
shaken into fantastic curves as a man may
shake few yards of rope. The solid piers
of the bridges constructed by English engi-
neers have been snapped at their bases as if
| they were carrots, and their mass, though
loaded with 100-foot Orders, rotated and
twisted in all directions.
Establishments have been broken down,
| leaving the country at the mercy Of the
! larger rivers. In other cases the rivers
| have been damned with equally disastrous
results. The wells are destroyed, the springs
have ceased to flow, the solid earth is rent
by assures, and, in a word, the whole work
| of patient and industrious civilization
has been reduced to shapeless ruin. Far be-
| yond the area of maximum disturbance the
same phenomena are found. though in
| gradually diminishing intensity.
To all this instantaneous and almost in
credible ruin the japanese oppose a cheer
| full and invincible fortitude. Panic there
may have been during the fearful ten or
twelve minutes while the earth surged like
@ sea beneath their feet, and all the works
of their hands toppled like house of cards
upon their heads. But il the midst Of this
widespread desolation and bereavement
they maintain their customary demeanor,
| and accept the inevitable with laughing
stoicism. This is all the more re-
markable because tee particular dis
| trict most severely afflicted has
| enjoyed q long immunity from earth
duakes, and had come to be regarded as
| practically safe. Why 1t has suddenly be-
come the theater of CONFUSION of abnor-
NAL severity is q question upon which
science is not likely to throw much light.
Even the ordinary scientific measurements
are wanting, since all the apparatus have
disappeared in the cataclysm. Something
| will doubtless be learned from the study OF
the ruins, though the extreme compIexlty
of the motions recorded in ordinary and
slight earthquakes does not inspire much
confidence in the results OF attempts to lu-
terpret the phenomena of destruction.