The morning times., 1896-07-13

| Correspondent Of the United Press, writing
| under date Of June rs. thus graphically
describes the devastation wrought Dy The
seismic wave which recently yisited the
northeast coast Of japan:
Japan has been visited by calamity OF
almost unprecedented magnitude. On
the 10th OF June, at $50 O'Clock in the
evening a seismic wave struck the Forth
east coast of the main island, throughout
a distance of about 200 miles, and in tive
minutes 10000 people were killed and
l2.OuO houses destroyed. That is the
whole story.
In the case Of inundations, cyc.oEes, or
even earthqua keS, there il a record of
more OF less Continuous mischief and more
or less successful struggle against the
forces Of destruction; but in the case OF
seismic waves; ore tremendous blow accom-
ptshes the whole calamity IN an instant
CAME IN A FLASH.
At half FAST O'Clock the inhabitants
OF numerous towns and hamets along tie
coast were celebrating the boys fests-
vai'' on the firth day Of the fifth month.
according To the old calendar; at twenty
five minutes before 8, 30 ,OtO cr item had
been swept out 10 sea or thrown dead upon
the shore. and < eco Of their hones had
disa preared or lay wrecked.
There was nothing 10 presage the disaster.
FROM IL i'll the forenoon until 4:30 in the
afternoon heavy rain fell. 1t was followed
by fine evening and a dark, calm right:
There il much difficulty in Obtaining
perfectly accurate statements as to the
times OF the phenome1a that preceded the
final Catastrophe; they were too iIsig
nificaBt 10 seem worth Tecorling. Several
accounts agree, bowever. tfat at about :.
O'Clock three or four shocks of earthquake
fall mt vi. II, to 1hGuUh nj
the vertical kind tEat folks in -Jaran have
learned TO dread.
The barometer gave, at the time, 10
rGication of anything unusual. Some
twenty or twenty five minutes later a
booming sound te,ame audible from the
direction of the sea. 1t appears to have
been variously Interpreted Some Con-
strued 1t as the noise or a Coming gale:
others supposed that huge 50 hool of
sardines had reached the ofring. Only a
very few suspected the real s;gnifica nee
of the sound ard fled inland at the top
of their speed.
Rapidly the noise increased until 1t as
srined the volume and deafcning din OF
great pack of artillery and then, in
moment, waves from twenty to thirty
feet high, Were laundering against the
shore. The places where the actual totals
of the deaths reached the highest figures
were not always those that suffered most
In proportion to their population
DEAD AMOUNT TO 2s,COO.
OF the three prefectures visiieu by the
wave-Iwate, MIyagi and Aonori-lwate
had by FAR tire largest aggregate OF disas-
ters, its list OF dead amounting TO &c, co.
Some of the details, however, convey a
more graphic Idea or the Iacts than any
general statement can suggest.
10 4. 10 Sld toy ypu
at the head of rocky inlet two miles
deep and directly facing the Pacific Ocean.
Behind 1t is a pIecipitous biil. The ill.,
hlbitlnts seem TO have remained until
the last. wholly unconscious Of what was
pending.
At little after 8 In the evening a
mountain OF sea was observed piiinS itself
up at the mouth OF the inlet. and in a
moment. with a thunderous ruar, waves
thirty feet high swept over the town.
Three times these avaianches OF water
rushed forward. the first in ncomparabiy
the most terrible. and in less than two
minutes the town was virtually annihiltaed.
Out of .223 dwellings only lab remained
standing. and out OF population of 6,5o7
death had overtaken 400. and 500 lay
wounded. In completeness of dcstruct on
this record heads the list.
Scarcely less appalling was the work
of the waves in bay some five miles
further north. There, in the village of
Futaishi, only 1C0 persons escaped death
out OF a population OF 790. and only two
houses out OF as many hundreds remained
standing.
At Yamada, 700 houses out of 900 were
destroyed, and 3,CoO persons were killed
out of 1890. At Toni. $50 houses were
swept away outof 269. and /. 1O3 persons
were killed and eighty-two wounded out
Of a total of ,206. In the Klssen district
one to wn and eleven villages attacked by
the wave had $3.50 persons killed, and
l $50 houses washed away or wrecked
WHOLE HAMLET WIPED OUT.
At HoDgp the wEole hamlet Of 30 houses
was apnihilated and tie sole survivors Were
party of men that happened to hc pa ying
go in a temple situated on high ground.
Such are the tales of death and ruin that
come from place after place, the terrible
totals IA { this moment of writing Being 49,
OT3 killed, ,737 wounded and ,s44 houses
washed away or wrecked
In the prefecture of Iwate, where thirty
six towns and villages on the coast were
visited by tie wave, 25, ,4l3 persons were
killed and 6,T79 wounded, out of total
population of 1O4. III so that out OF every
three eiDhabitauts one was killed or wounced.
1t is difficult yet to say whether males Cr
females prepODderatc among the NcuiiS.
Statistics from kiyagi prefecture show
that out OF 1875 deaths in twenty vii
lages, S76 We're males and 500 females. .
On the other hand, a Traveller passing
through the two hamIcts OF Tannoura and
Funakoshi the day after the catastrophe,
saw only thirty young men there. Not a
living woman or child was visible. On
the road, however, within distance Of
some two hundred yards, he counted
corpses OF woInen and children to the num-
Der OF thirty-thrce.
There was some remarkable escapes.
Men wept out to sea from one side of BAY
were thrown up alive on the opposite
beach. In one case several persons were
deposited on an island nearly three miles
from the town whence the wave had torn
them.
A few saved their lives by cliDging to
baulks of timber and several getting wedgcd
among the wooden debris of wrecked build
iDgs were preserved until the wave receded
At an inn in Oura, a traveller, apparently
the only man in the house, was grasped by
four terrified women and the combined
weight of the five furnished steady point.
some SAD STORIES.
But such bright incidents were rare,
whereas Of iDexpressible sad Happenings
there are numbers. The parents OF six chill
dren caused the little ones to throw their
arms around the beams of the house. There
they cluDg, the water reaching up to their
shoulders. The smallest child losing its
hold was swept away, and its father, spring
ing after it, shared its fate. Presently the
mother, trying to send off some floating
debris that threatened to strike the children,
was carried off, and the five orphans alone
remained.
In another family OF ten, one child of
eight dFifted TO q rock and was saved; in
another family OF the same number, the
fatfer ha wing carried n ba nv tn n hill n nd