New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1909-01-20
FROM M[SS|NA' RUIN |
First Survivor to Reach America
Tells Vivid Earthquake Tale.
SEEMED LIKE WORLDS END .

011nlO LINZ UOnlO y Emu
Thought Was In Purgatory," Says
Giuseppe Cutroneo, Who Witnessed
sicilian city's Fearful Fate-Tidal
Wave a Terrifying Sight.
Giuseppe Cutroneo, a butcher of
Messina, who lost his wife and three
children in the recent earthquake
which devastated Sicily, is the first
witness of the great disaster to reach
New York. In telling of his escape
from death he said in part:
II was in the cattle business in Mes
sina, and to this fact I owe my life.
On the morning of Dec. % got up at
4:15 o'clock to take trip into the
country to buy steers. All was quiet
as I left my home, 1873 Corso Victor
Emmanuel, and walked to the station,
about mile distant AS it happened,
the car in which took my seat was
the last coach, which stood outside the
train shed. Had taken forward car
I doubtless would have been killed.
"Of sudden the car shot up in the
air, falling with crash on one side.
A deafening roar filled my head. The
air became sufocating. My body seem
ed to grow numb all at once. I don't
know how long lay in a sort of stu
por before realized that there was
hole over me, through which I climbed
1.-The spectacle again stupefed me. /
thought the world had come to an end
and that l was in purgatory could
not at first recognize what saw as
Messina. Still the earth trembled, and
quakes came internationally, each one
topping over walls that had been
cracked or left standing by the first
shock. looked back at the station. 1t
had collapsed, and the train shed had
fallen on the forward part of the train
and crushed it almost fat
GAS soon as I realized that I was
still alive I thought of my wife and
three little children. I rushed back
into Messina, although now fires had
started in all directions. Here would
tower the flame of a broken gas main,
roaring and leaping like a gigantic
torch. There the wood skeleton of a
house blazed like hundred bonfires in
one. The sir was full of smoke and
dust, yet 1 could see close to the
shore great rift, where the earth had
been torn apart. Into it many Of the
houses had fallen, catching fire as
tI1 o,1~
made the ditch look like an elongated
volcano.
II looked seward and was trans
fixed by the most terrifying sight of
all. A wave was advancing toward
the city that grew as it approached
until it seemed as high as the light
house. It tumbled the ships about like
toys, turning them turtle or tossing
them on their beam ends. 1t came
with tremendous velocity, but to me it
seemed an age before it swept over
the lighthouse and engulfed the city,
tearing away the piers like paper and
swallowing the shore front Far in
land it swept, extinguishing many Of
the fires.
'The people running about in the
streets acted like lunatics. Some were
clambering over the ruins in their
nightclothes searching for relatives.
Through cracks the people that still
lived cried to those they feared were
dead. Other survivors whom l met
had wound around them bits Of carpet
or bedclothes, while others had for
gotten all about apparel
II found only a heap of bricks,
twisted iron and wood splinters where
used to live. The five stores had
tumbled into a heap about fifteen feet
high. My home was in a four room
fiat on the first floor It had been
buried at the bottom. Without think
ing how impossible was the task be-
gan to dig in the ruins. Down below
could hear means, and they made me
work like mailman.
81 would sometimes think l heard
my wife's cry, and I would yell down
into some crevice, 'Floria, Floria, here
is your Giuseppe!' and then l would
call to my children-to Diego, my six
year-old little boy; to Tony, who was
four, and Natalina, the baby. l was
still digging when some Russian sol
diers came and asked me if did not
want something to eat. Eighty people
were in the house where I lived, and
only one or two besides myself escaped.
s'F'or two days and night wan
dered about Messina until I thought
the sights of crime and death would
drive me crazy. Ghouls began to prey
upon the dead, digging up corpses to
rob them. When the soldiers caught
these f1ends at work they would riddle
them with bullets
Never will I forget my run toward
my home. saw many persons. Sew
eral had been injured by falling walls.
One man, with his legs broken, worked
his way painfully along, leaving a
trail of blood behind him. Again I
saw woman crawling over mass of
ruins, clinging to child God! If T