The Colorado statesman., 1911-06-10
EARTHQUAKE VISITS CAPITAL ON
FETE DAY-MOsT VICTIMS
ARE SOLDIERS.
SCORES ARE INJURED
WORST SHOCK IN TWENTY
YEARs-PRoPERTY DAMAGE
AMOUNT TO MILLION.

Mexico City.-Sixty-three killed, sew
enty-five wounded, property loss $780,
900.
These are the net results of the
earthquake which rent the capital and
injected note of tragedy into what
was expected to be day of unalloyed
rejoicing.
When the work of searching the
ruins is completed it is possible that
the list of dead will be heightened
somewhat, as hiding throughout the
city, there doubtless are many wound
ed, who, with traditional fear of the
authorities and government hospitals.
are anxious to evade discovery.
1t was 4:36 o'clock when the first
shock was felt. According to the
meteorological observatory, the great
est intensity was reached at the end OF
the first minute, but the instruments
continued to record the shocks for
four minutes more.
More than half of the dead ac-
counted for are soldiers. They were
caught beneath the falling walls of the
artillery barracks in San Cosma, near
the Mexican Central station.
Another place where the earth
quake took its toll of death in con-
siderable numbers was at the city
power plant of the Street Car Com
pany. Here six were killed and six
wounded.
Two others were found in the debris,
consisting partly of steel rails, which
-ta 10, W.
departments, and which collapsed.
The victims were inhabitants OF lit
tie shacks built along the side of the
structure.
With these two exceptions the death
list was made up of single cases, or IN
some instances of two and three,
caught beneath falling walls in the
poorer buildings of the district most
seriously affected.
Although the shock was felt in all
parts of the city, few realized the mag
nitude of the catastrophe until late in
the forenoon, as the casualties were
confined to a comparatively small
area. Accustomed as the residents
are to earthquakes and to their harm
lessness on former occasions, they
were slow to learn that this was the
most serious shock in twenty years.
In the barracks where the soldiers
their lives. They were the wives OF
the artillerymen. These women have
the privilege of spending the nights
within the walls of the barracks.
The barracks was an old structure,
built generation or more ago, but un-
like many of the older edifices, its walls
were comparatively thin. Seventy-two
soldiers were sleeping in the house
Approximately, half were quartered in
the first floor, the rest on the second.
The outer wall fell away and the
roof, crashing down on the sleeping
men, hurled them down through the
floor on their comrades below. The
bodies of thirty soldiers have been re-
covered. Three are missing and six
teen were wounded, few dangerously.
Those who escaped began the work
of rescue at once. Women whose sol
dier husbands were in the pile waited
in groups while little brown children
clung to their dresses and stared
curiously at the scene.
Three blocks from the barracks the
yards of the Mexican Central station,
at which Madero had been scheduled
to enter, presented another spectacle
of the shocks intensity. There long
wall separating these yards from those
of the Mexican railway, was thrown
down. A Mexican locomotive engineer
was lying by his engine, crushed to
death.
A warehouse of the Mexican Central
is almost wreck, one wall and por-
tion of the building having collapsed.
About one-third of the roundhouse was
torn down. No casualties were report
ed here.