The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1907-01-24
PROPERTY LOSS IS ENORMOUS.
Cables Snapped by Shock and Meager
Details Tell Story.

Nearly 1,UUU persons are IepOItcu
dead, at least $4,000 more have been
wounded more or less seriously and
property loss estimated at S25,OOO,OOO
wrought by terrible earthquake which
visited the city of Kingston and the
southern coast of Jamaica late Monday
afternoon. Fire followed the wrecking
of the city, as was the case in the San
Francisco disaster.
The disaster at Kingston, Jamaica,
seems to have been as great as the
calamities at San Francisco and Val
paraiso. The number of dead will
never be definitely known. and the
property loss is likely to reach $2o,OOO,-
O0O The whole town was left In ru-
ms and hundreds of dead bodies were
taken from the debris. Many bodies
in a state Of decomposition or charred
beyond recognition had to be burned.
The earthquake came as sudden
oscillation, not from any particular di-
rection, but up and down. Thousands
of persons were on the streets of
Kingston at the time and great num-
bers of them were crushed. Many
Americans in Kingston were killed and
have been buried.
Realizing the possibility of famine.
the people made attempts to loot. The
military, however, at once took pos
session of the foodstuffs. Detachments
Of troops with fixed bayonets were
placed on guard. They were concen-
trated in a central position. No one
was allowed to pass through the ruin
ed sections of the city.
Famine and pestilence threatened to
add their horrors to the situation at
Kingston The provision stores were
destroyed and the only food within
reach of the thousands of homeless
poor was fruit. The stencil from de-
caying bodies scattered through the de-
bris threatened an epidemic, and the
few doctors in Kingston, although
working night and day, were unable to
cope with the threatened plague. The
ships in the harbor were crowded with
injured people, and corpses lay i'm the
streets until thrown into trenches or
burned
Business was at a standstill. Some
shops were opened by Cinnamon, who
raised the prices ON goods 1000 per
cent. This so angered the people that
the Cinnamon were driven out and
their shops looted.
Direct communication with Kingston
was cut off when the earthquake
snapped the cables to America. Tenn
porary land lines were established
however, connecting with other cable
lines, through which sources cneager
details of the disaster were received.
Kingston was overwhelmed by the
earthquake. All the houses within a
radius of ten miles were damaged and
nearly every house in the city was de-
stroyed. Fire broke out after the earth
quake and completed the ruin The
business section of Kingston is heap
of smOldering ashes The killed num-
Der about 1000 and thousands were in
| jured-
Fires broke out again Tuesday night.
| The negroes looted the rumshops. A
dispatch says that 1,200 persons have
been killed. There were weird and ter
rible scenes. Forty-five invalid sol
der; were burned to death in the mill
tary hospital. Several shocks were felt
Wednesday.
Cables from Colon indicate that
many victims were burned to death,
| the operator using the words furnace
| of human SOULS He also described
the dead by hundreds"
/ Hospitals Choked with wounded.
The hospitals that remain standing
| were choked with injured: dead lay in
all portions of the city and some of the
bodies were burned up by the flames
| which swept over the place.
Jamaica, being a great winter resort
with the city of Kingston the main
point of interest, attracted hundreds OF
/ pleasure seekers to it's shores, and
alarm was felt all over America fol
persons from this country who wer,
| near the scene Of the seismic disturb
ance.