Tee EARTHQUAKE INISHING an emery ig my dary, t Shut rand By F. KINGDON-WARD A. vividlyweitten account of an unforgettable experience. ‘The Author is a wellknown Himalayan explorer, and describes how, while camping near the Tibetan frontier, he and his ‘wile narrowly escaped with their lives from the risk, and together we rushed out into the ‘most awful pandemon- trance to our tent. On the camp table besicle me the hurricanc-lamp burnt dimly ; my wife was already in her cot, half asleep. I told myself I must soon pur out the light and turn in; we were duc to start off again carly the following ‘morning, and a good night's rest was escential, First of all, however, 1 wanted 10 Jie back and relax for ten minutes, enjoying the comparatively cool night air. The date was August T5tl3, 1950, the time about 8 p.m., and the place the wilds of Upper Assam. ‘Everything seemed very quiet, Now and then a dog barked in the village of Rima, away behind us, and T could just detect the muflled echo of the river as it entered a narrow part of the deep gorge. Occasionally an owl shricked somewhere close by. ‘Suddenly, as I reclined there in a semi-doze, the chair on which I sat, the sable, and finally the tent itself began to shiver. Aroused, my wife sat up in her cot. A split second later the whole Walley appeared to be convulsed, and the air ‘was filled with a loud roaring. Tnvoluntarily 1 sprang 10 my fect. "What on earth's that?” I asked, startled, and thrust my head cout between the p tent-fape The high mountains were silhouetted against a riband of clear, Star-flecked sky, but their outlines,” in- stead of being sharp aod hard, were Strangely fuzzy. Meznwhilethe noise continued, —becom= ing louder even a5 [stared about me ig bewilderment. ‘Pron the dread truth dawned on both of us, but it wa my wife who ur it into words. ‘An ecarth= quike cried, now thoroughly awake, and forth- with leaped from, her bed." Outside quick!” T seized the lay back in fam, ‘The turmeil way ee ee ee iat 1 the deck ene oT teifying. Mingled chair near aie roel one with) the dreadful the en- found. of the etn and sheating of the earth's erust came the roar of mountains that were apparently tumbling down in every direction. Ie appested as though the very areh of heaven was falling. rectly we left the tent a violent tremor threw us tO the ground, and we felt the earth beneath us bucking and’heaving madiy, Every rroment I expected it t0 split open and precipitate Us into some yawning fiswure. Great rocks were Crashing from the mountainsides ; dust rose like the smoke of some vast conflagration, blotting out the stars, Meanwhile a rain of gigantic hhammer-blows thundered on the ground below ; it seemed that it must soon be pulverized into fragments. “Too tightened to move, we ly where we had fallen, with the familiar around us breaking up bodily. For quite five minutes— minutes 2s long as years—mountains and valleys shook, shivered, and trembled to the accom- atiment ot car-spiting sounds of destruction. tis impossible to convey an adequate iden of our sensations or the impression of overmastering Terror and utter helplessness in the face of Stupendous disaster. below Rima as it appeared before the earthquake.The monastery at Rima, destroyed by the ‘quake, At last, however, the earth-tremors began to die away. ‘Then, quite suddenly, there came 2 series of five explosions high in the sky ; they followed one another, loud and distinet, at equal intervals of a few seconds, The detonations reminded me of anti-aircraft shells bursting found enemy ‘planes, but their effeet was very different. Abraptly the shaking of the ground ceased, the last boulders rumbled down the mountains, the splintering trees stood firm. Even the river—which had roared like a wild beast fn pain throughout the | cataclysm—became quitter, “There could be no doubr the earthquake ‘Whar caused that extraordinary “ gunfire” is a complete mystery. The explosions were THE EARTHQUAKE — 381 heard on the plains of Assam, two hundred miles away, where the soft earth “'wobbled lke a jelly” during the worst phases of the “quake, We rose slowly to our feet, thankful t0 be ve andl tinier, fe NOt yer "quite sire that wwe wore. Had we passed though some terrible ighimiee, or Bad it all really happened 2 Tt Scemed hard to Believe it was an acta experience “ut there was the dust which filled the air and now began 10 sete, silently and impalpably. Te as in Our eyes, oUF ears, our mouths 5 already it was lining Our hangs ad forming a grey film on our faces, For days thereafter we were eating ise as well as breathing it! The “quake was mercifully over, but its ciread aftermath was only just beginning, “From the village came’ no sound of barking dogs, no Shoutine of men. Had all those poor souls been Killed ? Fortunately, this was noc the case, for presently there strolled into our camp” the familar figure of a villager of our acquaintance —and he had a broad grin on his face I envied hie stoligity ; in the midst of this. tremendous calamity he still contrived to remain cheerful The sight of that simple billman pur new life and confidence into us, and especialy into our two, Sheapa boys, who had Deen” very, badly frightened, ‘Our friend told us that the village had been badly damaged, despite the fact that the houses massively built of logs resting en solid stone foundations—were only one storey high. By ated luck, however, nobody had been “ Let's have some tea," suggested my wife; there was no thought of going heck to bed again “*Bring buckets, seucepans—anything !*”38 Local tribesmen arrive to carry the equipment. after such an awakening. ‘The wood fire was Sell burning, and we rect the lanterns. The Stream from which we drew our water was only & dozen yards from the cook-house and boys" tent, and ae of te Sherpas took the ketle and went Off (Nest moment be gave a show of dry, and we all rushed towards him to see what had happened. The brook, which two hours pre- viously had flowed swiftly along its bed, was tow nothing but a tickle.” Even as we watched it grew smaller and small “Quik! 'T shouted: saucepan anything 1 We fled s couple of eises and a pail, but only with diffcliy, for the tickle aan died fey toa re thread andy aly, nermitent Bop Ger wae copety baa recta there as nothing we ceuld do about it! ‘We sat around sipping tan and talking for aan hour, “We all tele sighily dazed 1 seemed incredible thot these mighty” mountains, rising fen o twelve thousiad feet above our Heads the wilage im the gorge wens tell 960 feet above sea-level—should have been in the grip of a force which shook them asa errr shakes 2 7a The previous day they had looked s+ solid and immmaable as the Rock of Gibraltar’ now thes were wiven aad shattered, their rocky slopes Gistoxegrating Uke sand-dines in a breeze. Tide ur tent, curdouely enough, every thing appeared exactly ae ie had done before fhe qiaie, Mowing ‘was broken, snechiog ‘Sbarranged even the aluminiust tentepoles had faot ahifea |The Knoll oa which Sue Hale Camp was pitched had withstood the terrific shaking: tod "batiering unharmed; moreover—very fortunately for usin had noc been in the line descent ofthe filing rocks. ‘Thousands of age boulders, dislodged from the mountainsides by the Visitor tremors, nd Iejped; bounced aa folled down the steep alopesy snapping off stout trees Hike match.aticks, Any one of these fying masses could have demolished our tents and wept thes avy, leaving -aoting but 2s “Bring buckets, THE WIDE WORLD MAGAZINE and shattered corpses to mati: the vite, Yet we had emerged scatheless | Though the disturbance was over, there was as yet ‘no reassuring Festfulness about our surroundings. ‘Those adjustments of the earth's crust which inevitably follow a severe earthquake—especi- ally in regions so notoriously unstable asthe mountains on the Assam frontier—had stil tecome, We were blissfully unaware of the fact at the moment, but these were destined to continue for ‘months! In our state of nervous tension, in the dust and darkness — of that night of tern, it was enough for ws that Practically every half-hour, the tortured groun: ave a convulsive shudder. “Fach of these tremors some of half a minute's duration—was ccom- panied by a roaring sound, like a great wind, and by fresh rock-falls close ar hand, either on. the opposite side of the big Lohit River or on.onr own bank, close to the village and camp. alice Frowing she ways of a indeed, we were ignorant as yet that it ar a soar agehgamke we feared repetition of the major shock, “and before venturing to lie down on our beds again we made careful pre- arations for a rapid get-out if necessary. There ‘was no sleep for any of us during the remainder of the night, although I believe I dozed off once or twice for half an hour, Meanwhile, in England, California, South Africa, and almost every modern city in the world, seismogmphs had been registering the greatest upheaval of the earth's crust since these delicate instruments Were invented. As a matter of fact, seismographs thousands of miles distant Grossing a flooded stream on a precarious log bridge.THE EARTHQUAKE 383 “The village appeared to be in ruins.” hhad heen thrown off bolance j_ they either ceased sgcccord of the tremendous oscillations extended Beyond the limits of the graph paper! Within a few hours scientists were hard at work trying to decide in what part of the globe this terrific cataclysm had occafred, and later the newspapers Smnouneed that there had been an earthquake Of great intensity somewhere in north-east India, Not for several days was the teal magnitude of the disaster realized. Tits epicentre,” according to American Jhysicsts, was inthe south-exstern comner of ‘bet, about twenty-five miles froma the frontier with Assam, “Fhe 'guake shook the whole of Uprer Assam, (wo hundred miles away, and mute also have done the same with a large acea in Tiber, but # this region is almost uninhabited Ho record of what happened there is come so fran ‘Dawa arrived at last, ond we got up and fooked outside once more. Things. appeared ‘morc or less normal, A bird was singing sweetly 5 in a nearby ficld a small boy was shouting t0 scare bieds off the ripening crops. Presently, from the village, there emerged a file of old women and young girls plodding out to work, Be they ad done every ‘morning for months, ‘We felt very thankful ; evidently the world was ot completely topsy-turvy ! ‘Nevertheless, the sun rose on a scene very different from that on which it had set_the Previous evening. The flanks of the mouncains Were muted “and torn asunder, the wounds white as snow against the pre Breet of summer, The ueead terre that lod Step by step down to the siver—many of them fivated—were now corrugated and fissured ‘with deep cracks, sometimes riised, sometimes Sagging downwards, ‘The high river-bank itself Gee ped ae tomteet vie -ontag eocodd Of peeve Ths wilsges fa 1 oom oe frees appeared to be ia ruins Te was tre that the owt main timers of the twelve or feen log. ouses ail hele fiem, Bue every too! nd ie tod Canes eae ty Gee Fee aples cate and pgm, shi op im pena that ban collapeed, lay dead oF dving-ra toss to thee owners’ Tem uling lay on Fv ide, hurica cles! ff i foundation, tod 3 boveesshaped chorean Creligions: memorial) had Bn-stpped roe core, 0 3c most amaring sight ofall, perhaps, was the Lohie River, now 2: wldly-onsing acs oF Bootie wi fee ential) eee tore ISS Gas rules bosom cat anne able, great ireesrunks, plunging and to oe eee ee Swising edie) and’ rushing headlong, through Googe eat cele ty cae ee have been uprooted oF smashed ; they passed inendst proses.‘ stench of te mud No less sonderfl, though, on. 3. smatler sctle, was the spectacle presented ty the minor tributary which swept wifey down ftom the Boome border to-fon tie oni se Hines te previous afternoon it had been crystal-clear ; carefully choosing the right, place, one could easily have waded across it. Now, like the Lohit, it was just liquid mud—the colour of coffee— Jaced with froth, and considerably deeper. Three tills housed in Umber cabins along its bank in ruins ; the primitive cantilever bridge that -d any ih stag in grave danger of collapes and ST shoul’ have eared to z ‘We leamed later that on the plains of Assam, two of three hundred miles from where384 we were, the earth had swayed sickeningly and Sagged in many places. Over a wide area several buildings Had fallen, railway lines had Snapped, bridges had been shattered, and roads ind "sunk. On the whole, however, direct damage had been comparatively slight. But the foods resulting from the damming of rivers far away back in the ‘mountains, long after. the ‘earthquake was over, eventually caused the death ‘of hundreds of people by drowning. ‘So much for external matters ; I will now return to our own position. Once it was fully light we were able to get a better idea of the havoc the “quake had wrought, but we still had no idea of its extent and intensity. As the sun rose over the mountain ridge the air began to heat up, and the usual daily wind swept through the river gorge. Loosened rocks started 10 fall again, and soon the shaken mountains were Giseoosing avalanches of gravel and boulders, which swept down their slopes to the accom: paniment of thunderous roaring. Clouds of dust Continued to rise from these rock slides, spread far and wide by the wind until the sun was veiled and the mountains across the river, only a mile away, apeared dimly outlined through the choking for. ‘Meanwhile, every hour or so, there was a terrifying subterranean rumble, after which the shook for several seconds. These earth- tremors felt—and sounded—exactiy as though an enormous train were rushing through a tunnel just beneath our feet. THE WIDE WORLD MAGAZINE ‘You will already have gathered that when all this happened may wife and I were far away from anything representing civilization. It was three weeks before we were able to cross the flooded fer and start our dificle homeward journey is was because the ridge actoss the iuspaable Lulit had bees destroyed. and—wi the stream in gigantic flood—it proved impossible to replace it. Even then it was nearly three months, alter a series of adventures, before we Succeeded. in getting out of the mountains and safely back to the plains. Here we discovered that our friends had been exceedingly anxious as to our fate; even the Home newspapers had indulged in speculation as to what had happened to us. We learned also, for the first time, that we had been at the very heart of one of the greatest, earthquakes on. record—and, luckily, survived uninjured to tell our sto From the strictly scientific point of view, however, all. that’ occurred’ was. the sudden, coilapse of a relatively small block of the earth’s crust a few miles down. Possibly the fracture ‘was several miles long, and one half of it slipped downwards, thus creating a geological “ fault.” ‘On the other hand, the roof of some vast subterranean cavern’ may have given way, thereby jarring the upper crust. Nobody knows for certain ; itis just a matter of theory. At all ‘events, whatever its cause, the displacement produced the awe-inspiring phenomenon T have endeavoured to describe, and which my wife and T will never forget.