The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-07-13

wave appears to have been north by east,
for, after carrying devastatioE TO the shore
of the main island, it left Yeze on the west,
touching that island at Yerimo Cape only.
There was nothing to presage the disas-
ter. From IL O'Clock in the forenoon un-
til 4:30 in the afternoon heavy rain fell. It
was followed by fine evening and dark,
cool night. There is much difficulty in
obtaining perfectly accurate statements
as to the times of phenomena that pre-
ceded the hnal catrastrophe; they were
too insignificant to seem worth recording.
Several accounts agree, however, that at
1880 O'Clock three or four shocks of earth
quake were felt; not violent shocks,
though of the vertical kind that folks in
Japan have learned to dread. The barom-
eter gave, at the time, no indication of
anything unusual. Some twenty or twenty
five minutes later booming sound be-
came audible from the direction of the
sea. 1t appears to have been variously
interpreted. Some construed it as the
noise of coming gale; others supposed
that a huge school of sardines had reached
the offing, and others thought that there
was question of whales.
Only a very few suspected the real sig
nificance of the SOUND, and fed inland at
the top of their speed. Rapidly the noise
increased, until it assumed the volume
and deafening din of great park of ar
tillery, and then. in a moment, waves
from 20 to 80 feet high were laundering
against the shore The places where the
actual totals OF deaths reached the highest
figures were not always those that suffered
most in proportion to their population.
Of the three prefectures visited by the
wave-Iwate, Miyagi and Aomori-Iwate
had by far the largest aggregate of disas-
tiers, its list of dead mounting to 26, 900.
Some of the details, however, convey a
more graphic idea of the facts than any
general statement can suggest.
Kamaishi is little seaside town, situ-
ated at the head of rocky inlet two miles
deep and directly facing the Pacific Ocean.
Behind it is precipitous hill. The inhab-
itants seem to have remained until the last
wholly unconscious of what was pending.
At little after in the evening q noun
tain of sea was observed piling itself up at
the mouth of the inlet, and in moment,
with a tremendous roar, waves 80 feet high
swept over the town. Three times these
avalanches of water rushed forward, the
first incomparably the most terrible, and
in less than two minutes the town was vir-
tually annihilated. Out of 1923 dwellings
only 143 remained standing, and out OF a
population of 6557 death had overtaken
400 and 500 lay wounded. In complete
ness of destruction this record heads the
list. Scarcely less appalling was the work
OF the wave in bay some five miles far
ther north.
There. in the village of Futaishi, only
100 persons escaped death out of popu-
lation Of 790. and only two houses out OF
as many hundreds remained standing. AT
Yamada, 700 houses out of 800 were de-
stroyed, and 5000 persons were killed out
of 400. At Toni, $50 houses were swept
away out of 1869, and 1103 persons were
killed and 80 wounded out of a total of
1905. In the Kissen district, one town and
| eleven villages attacked by the wave had
$3.50 persons killed and 1860 houses washed
away or wrecked. AT Hongo, the whole
hamlet of 150 houses was annihilated, and
the sole survivors were party of men