The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1896-07-13

in Oura, a traveller, apparently the only
man in the house, was grasped by four
/ terrified women and the combined weigh.
t of the five furnished a steady point. But
i such bright incidents were rare, whereas
4 of inexpressibly sad happenings there are
/ numbers. The parents of six children
caused the little ones to throw their
| arms around the beams of the house.
| There they clung, the water reaching up
| to their shoulders. The smallest child
losing its hold was swept away and its
| father, springing after 1t, 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
drifted to a rock and was saved; in
another family of the same number the
| father, having carried a baby to a hill
and finding that none of the others fol-
lowed, set down the baby and ran back
only to perish with the rest
The story of a retired soldier is worth
repeating. His experience in the recent
war had taught him to apprehend the
raiding of Japan's coasts by a hostile
fleet. Thus, when the cannon-lile roar of
the advancing waters and the cries OF the
people reached him, he threw on his tunic
and ran shoreward, sword in hand. Next
tered, but not separated from the sword.
Strange to say. fishermen plying their
trade four miles from the Shore did not
observe anything to indicate the occur
renee OF serious phenomenon, though
a party only three miles out In the same
| district encountered heavy waves rolling
north. By and by one of the boats OBJ
served what seemed to be large fish
floating on the water, but on rowing near
er they saw that 1t was child lying on
mat. In the same manner three other
children were picked up by fisherman,
who, to his establishment found that one
of them was his own son.
Inepresslbly sad was the fate of some
Of the fishermen. returning, shoreward in
received their first notice of what had oe-
Cured by finding the ccrpses of their
wives and children floating ia the water.
At points closer to the centre of the dis
turbance however, the commotion in the
water was perceptible to a much greater
distance from the shore. Thus a party
funny off the Shiehukawa coast heard,
as they supposed, the booming of big
guns in the DISTANCE. Soon afterwards,
the ocean heaye in huge masses, which,
after rising TO mountainous. heights. broke
in the middle, and swept northward and
southwark. ultimately striking the shore
with a deafening crash The waves
passed under the boats without swamping
shore remained so rough throughout the
night that the fishermen could not make
land until the morning, when they found
their wives and children dead and their
homes in ruins.
The scene presented by the devastated
districts is shocking. Along the beaches
the dmbers OF wrecked houses lie pied
upon each other; discovered roofs of
tnatch that sheltered happy families a
few days ago in quiet country hooks are
strewn pell nell on the sands; here houses
fhdt ffaye had their walls torn away
stand. mere skeletons, others have been
wrenched from their foundations tele-
scoped into each other, tumbled upside
down or heaped together in shattered
confusion. In one instance the immense
anlouat Of water, rushing up a narrow
inlet tore from their foundations the
houses on either side and drove them
with terrific force into the high land
ahead. where they now lie crushed into
confused mass of timber thatch and
wreckage of all kinds, the grave of many
a fnangled body.
Horses and cattle lie wedged amonr the
rocks and men and women wander about,
stupefied and helpless. looking as if their
minds and energies had been numbed
the debris of the ruined buildings or un-
der heaps of mud and sand thrown up
Dy the waves, and often when a body
IS distinguished no friend or relative re-
@iaiHs alive to Identify 1t.
The Government is, of course, adopting
vigorous measures of relief and liberal
subscriptions are pouring into the news
paper offices both vernacular and foreign
for when calamity overtakes japanese the
benevolence of the foreign community is
invariably high-handed
AS to the cause of the disaster opinions
are still divided. At first it was supposed
that the disturbance had its origin in a
sudden collapse of the sides of the sub
terranean crater known as the Tuscarora
Deep.
Commander (now Rear AdmiraD Belk-
nap, of the United States Navy. on a deep
sea survey cruise in the United States
frigate Tuscarora twenty-five years ago,
found trough-lke depression off the
northeast coast of Japan in north latitude
44.50 and east longitude $3.50. The heavy
sounding lead took about one and one
half hours to reach bottom, and indicated
- 49, I-.rE 49,
miles. On the other hand, considering
that the advent of the great wave was
Immediately preceded by earthquake
shocks whose vertical character pre-
cludes the hypothesis that they were due
to the stupendous rolling of the wave
itself, the most reasonable conclusion ap-
pears to be that submarine volcanic
eruption took place somewhere in the
ocean bounded by the 1924 and 143d meri-
dians of east longitude and the 39th and
40th parallels of north latitude. It may
be added, however, that since the catas-
trophe, the fish seem to have deserted
the upper waters; few can be. caught
now only by using the deepest seines,
the great bulk having apparently gone
shocking feature of the phenomenon
was its savage energy of destruction. In
the Valleys below Bandaisan, mems
bodies. when; not torn limb from limb
No wonder that such was the case, for
50 stupeEdous was the atmospheric dis
tufbance that II not only leyelled forests
to the ground but stripped the trees of
bark and twigs, reducing them to bal
aneed skeletons. And now. as in the |
case of the Iwate wave, corpses recov-
cred within few hours of death looked
as though they had undergone a weeks |
decomposition. The wounds suffered by
the survivors and shown by the |
bodies of the dead are also of
a shocking description. In some cases |
the flesh is torn into shreds, exposing the
bones beneath; in others the eyes are
trunks seem to have been wrenched asun-
der by forces acting in opposite directions:
In others the victim looked as though il |
had been plunged In boiling water and
almest every corpse shows purple spots
as If 1t had been fiercely pelted with frag-
ments OF stone or iron. 1t is expected
now receiving rTsedical, treatment, will
succumb. Then the total of deaths will