Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 November 1902 — DEAD NUMBER SEVEN THOUSAND [ARTICLE]

DEAD NUMBER SEVEN THOUSAND

Reports from Guatemala Earihquake Bring Horrible Details. Refugees who have arrived at Port Barrios from Western Guatemala report a terrible state of affairs as the result of the eruption of the Santa Maria volcano. The country for a radius of thirty miles has been made a desert waste mid every vestige of life destroyed. The loss of life is estimated at over 7.4MH), the great majority of the victims being Indians. Ten Indian villages, each with a population of from 50 to 500 inhabit ants, were wiped out, the rude huts being buried beneath tons of volcanic debris. All of tlie coffee plantations in the volcanic zone nre ruined ami their owners left penniless. The government has been making the most strenuous efforts to conceal the facts concerning the catastrophe, but they are gradually reaching the towns on the east coast through refugees who are fleeing from the country. All cable messages containing references to the eruption of the volcano nre rigorously censored nnd even the mails nre closely inspected by government officials. The greatest, distress prevails throughout the central and western portions of the republic and on the eastern const the effects nre felt ill the scarcity of money and the rise in exchnngc. • A famine exists nt (Jucsnliemuigo and 10,(MM) "eoplc are starving. Even- in Guatei. . t City, the capital, the inhabitants' are suffering for food. Flour in Guatemala is selling for $25 a barrel in gold, # tuid flee of an inferior quality is quoted at 20 cents a pound in gold. Charley Gump, a young farmer living southwest of Rich Hill, Mo., lost an arm in a threshing machine and died of his injuries. G. H. Neal, an American bookkeeper, Cordoba, Mexico, perhaps fatally shot by a Mexican railroader.