Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-10-29
JAPAN STORM-SWEPT
DETAILS OF TYPHooN AND TIDAL
WAVES oF SEPTEMBER.
Sacred Bridge at Nikko Wrecked
Hundreds Drowned on Coast
Of Odawara.

Japanese newspapers of September % and
80 contain exhaustive accounts of the ty-
phoon and tidal wave of Sunday, Septem-
Der 2s. Vast damage was done by wind
to the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama. The
coast of Odawara, a seaboard district in the
province of Sagami, was swept by tidal
wave, in which 600 persons were drowned.
Cable reports of the catastrophe were
promptly published by the press of the
United States, but these reports were brief.
The province of Sagami, which gives its
name to the Sea of Sagami, Is at en-
trance to the Gulf of Toxic. Some thirty
or forty miles west from Yokohama the To-
kiado railway reaches the town of kozu,
running at the base of some hills, and about
half a mile from the shore of Sagami bay.
This tract was swept by three huge waves,
which overwhelmed everything for several
miles for distance of five hundred yards
inland between the towns of kozu and
Odawara
Sixteen villages along the coast were dam
aged more or less seriously by the cyclone
and tidal waves. Hundreds of families and
many thousands of people altogether lost
houses and all their possessions, while the
colored sand, which buried all trace of
some of the villages. Majestic trees were
uprooted and overthrown, and roads and
bridges were broken up.
Inc Japan Times september ~ pup
fishes a detailed statement Of losses and
casualties in the wards of Tokyo. Among
the buildings destroyed were the United
States legation educational office. financial
headquarters, barracks of mounted guards,
Mexican legation and the residences of
Prince Shimazu and Prince Komatsu.
In Yokohama wave ten feet high bore
down on the bund, washing away the
greater part Of the stone embankment
along the new reclaimed ground of the
harbor Office and inf1icting damage on
boats and sampans.
Desolation of Odawara.
A witness, writing to the Yokohama Ad-
vertiser September 80, describes his visit
to the town Of Odawara and the hamlet Of
Koyata when the storm had passed. He
says in part:
"Approa ching the town a barrier of
household furniture and effects SO OBJ
structed the buried roadway that long
detour on to the beach and then across
swirling stream with a single pole as
BRIDGE, was the only route to be taken,
and one might well realize that that awful
destructive force of those terrible waves
which had swept over that tract but a
few hours before must have been some
thing beyond the like that most of us have
ever seen. Emerging from the village, or
at least where the village had been, our
traveller came to a barren, sandy, trackless
waste, four feet below which there had
been growing rice few hours before.
at Is difficult to refrain from using what
might appear exaggerated terms, but the
fact remains that literally hundreds of
acres of paddy fields are buried four feet
deep in sea sand, and ruin awaits those
farmers whose sole sustenanee depended
upon those buried crops. At one point,
over a mile inland, was a huge junk, ap-
parently tossed playfully on to a little
mound which had hitherto borne only
pine grove and a shrine, while little fur
Their on the sandy waste was relieved by the
mad seaward rush of a swirling stream,
across which a couple of barked poles had
been thrown.
Grief of the People.
GAS one attempts to describe the awful
scene of desolation in this hamlet of Ko-
yata one feels a sickening sensation and
fails to find suitable expression for the
casion. Perhaps a hurried list of some of
the sad features will suffice. Around sew
eral of the large thatch roofs which raised
themselves wall-less from the ground were
maddened crowds, armed with picks, farm
ers' hoes or with only bare hands, digging
and tearing at the sand and mud in the
frenZied hope that some missing members