Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 55, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1911 — QUAKE AND TIDAL WAVE ENGULF 500 [ARTICLE]

QUAKE AND TIDAL WAVE ENGULF 500

Hurricane that Follows Lasts Five Days. THREE CITIES ARE DESTROYED Earthquake Hurls Wall of Water Upon Hapless People of East Shore of Gulf of California Before Daylight Oct. 4. Mexico City, Oct. 13. —The cities of Ban Jose de Guayamas, Empallo and Ortiz, on the eastern snore of the Gulf of California, were destroyed on the early morning of Oct 4, by a tidal wave of thousands of tons of water cast up by a terrific earthquake in the gulf. Guayamas, Altata and Topotobampo were terribly damaged by the same wave, which lost some of its force by the time it reached them. Owing to the fact that the hurricane succeeding the tidal wave lasted five days, cutting off every means of communication with the outside world, no definite news of the terrible disaster came out until word was received from the governor of Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora, calling for provisions, tents, clothing, etc, for the stricken survivors. His message states that from 300 to 500 persons lost their lives in the tidal wave or in the hurricane, and that it is impossible to estimate the damage done to property along the coast. The earthquake occurred before daylight and, almost before the inhabitants of the coast towns had time to become alarmed at the earth tremors, a huge wall of v. • twenty feet high, swept in from the gulf, carrying everything before it. Ships and houses were swept far inland and deposited half a mile or more away on the sand dunes of the interior. The survivors, many of whom are suffering from broken arms or legs, tell heart-rending tales of the scene. When the huge wave struck the sleeping town and country men and women were drowned in their beds or crushed beneath the falling wreckage. Men fought for boards to enable them to keep their heads above the swirling water and women held their babies aloft, crying for some one to ome and save them. Many of the dead, and, it is feared, a number of living, were washed back into the gulf and there devoured by the great school of sharks which infests this arm of the Pacific.