Hawaii Holomua, Volume III, Number 166, 18 July 1894 — Earthquake in Japan. [ARTICLE]

Earthquake in Japan.

i Many districta in Japan have again snffered from severe earthqnakes wliieh cansed lossof mneh property hiuI many lives. Tokyo md Yokohama have been the greatest sufferers. The latter city : has heen visited by preat misfor- ! tune lately. A destructive fire j laid part ot the town in ashes. A | serious water famine hus beeu ; prominent and to fill the enp of misfortune the earthquake nearly »lestroyed the city In regard to the origin of tbe late seismological convulsion The Japan Muil writes. The origin of the earthquake is located by Profes>sor Wada Ishiro at a point in the neighbonrhood of Shirane san and Asa-ma-yama in Shinano. He eonsiders that the phenomenon was volcanic, but npon what grounds this estimate of plaee and nature are based we do not learn. It seems tobe generally agreed that, so far as the severity uf the shock was concerned, neither tbe great eartbquake of Ansei, tbat laid Tokyo in ruin, uor the calaraity of 1&91 that wroaght such bavoc in Gifu aud Owari. was of equal inteusity. The earth moveraents on the present oeeaaion we:’e the most v:’olent of all, but baj>pily their comparatively short duration averted resnlts of wholesale disaster. lt is, indeed, difl5cnlt to nnderstand how any buildings could witbstand such twisting and hoaving. A practical illustratiou is aff>rded by the exporience of a Tokyo resident. His j faraily happene'd to be divided i into two parties at the moment of the shock. one below stairs, the other in a distant part of tbe second storey, a loug w«y off. Being bimself downstairs. he pro ceeded to ascend to the second storey after seeing the inmates of the lower storey escape into the garden. But so violent was the oseillatiou that he found bimself obliged to cliug to the bamsters in order to ascend tho stairs. How lofty bonses and tall ehimnies conld survive such an ordeal, it is difficult to conceive.