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Show EARTHQUAKE KfLLS" HUNDREDSIN ITALY FEARFUL LOSS OF LIFE IN TOWNS AND VILLAGES DESTROYED BY SHOCK. Reported That Twenty Thousand Are Dead and Thirty Thousand Injured, In-jured, While Hundreds Are Made Homeless'and in Want. Rome. Italy again has been visited by an earthquake 'of wide extent which, according to the late advices, has resulted in the death of 20,000 persons and injury to 30,000 more in the towns and villages destroyed. The shock was the strongest .Rome has felt in more than a hundred years. The town of Avezzano in the Abruzzi department, sixty-three miles east of Rome, has been leveled to the ground; here 8,000 persons are reported to have been killed. As details of the earthquake disaster disas-ter which rocked the entire width of Italy in a 300-mile belt filter through the maze of twisted wires, which once were the means of communication between be-tween here and the stricken district of which Avezzano is the center, the catastrophe' proves more appalling in its immensity. In Avezzano all but 300 of the 12,-000 12,-000 population were buried in the ruins. Nine-tenths of the population were killed Practically every person per-son who was not in the streets at the time lost his life. Including the environs en-virons i5,000 were killed or injured. Rescuers frantically digging in the debris de-bris are driven almost mad by the wails, the moans and the desperate appeals for help from those they cannot can-not reach buried alive in the ruins. Hundreds of dead line the streets. Sora, only thirty miles to the southeast south-east of Rome a town of 20,000 was almost entirely wiped out by the renewed re-newed disturbances. These new shocks rocked Rome and its environs. More than two-thirds of the houses of Sora were shaken to the ground by the shocks. Others that were cracked tumbled to the ground later. . Four hundred and fifty of the dead ! have been taken from the ruins. Relief Re-lief workers are digging in the ruins for more dead and the fast succumbing succumb-ing survivors who are pinned helpless less in the debris. The populace is in I a panic. In the capital itself, so far as known, there was no loss of life, but a great ! deal of damage was done, churches j and statues suffering most. For a "time the people were stricken with fear and there was a veritable panic in the hospitals, monasteries and convents. con-vents. At the Palazzio del Brago, where Thomas Nelson Page, the American ambassador lives, several cracks in the building which already had existed opened wider and plaster fell in several sev-eral rooms. The glass was broken in the embassy office. Ceilings in many of the houses fell, a number of persons being injured in that manner. In many small towns surrounding Rome, buildings were partially wrecked, wreck-ed, while at Naples a panic occurred and houses fell at Caserta, a short dis-! tance to the east. When the shock was felt frightened people rushed into the churches, but the police ordered them out of those which were in danger of collapsing. In all the churches in the city, after the shock had subsided, special prayers were ordered for deliverance from disaster. At the meteorological institute it is said that buildings continued to rock or tremble for about thirty seconds after the shock had ceased and that the duration of the phenomenon altogether alto-gether was about one minute. It was stated it was not beileved the disturbance disturb-ance was required. At Monterotondo three persons were killed and two wounded; at Zagarolo the dome of the church fell; at Gali-ano Gali-ano part of the cathedral was wrecked; wreck-ed; at Veroli one person was killed; at Pereto five houses collapsed and at Poggio Nativo one person was killed and several were injured. At Torre Cajetani, about thirty-seven thirty-seven miles east of Rome, almost the entire village was destroyed, while at Arnara the municipal building collapsed. From numerous places in the affected affect-ed regions calls for doctors and medicine medi-cine are reaching Rome. Pope Benedict Bene-dict was reciting the thanksgiving after the morning mass when the shock occurred. The pontiff retained his composure and gave orders immediately imme-diately that the damage both inside and outside the Vatican be ascertained and requested a report whether assist-nce assist-nce was required. King Victor Emmanuel also ordered the minister of the interior to furnish him with all the details of the earthquake. earth-quake. The king expressed a desire to visit the damaged cities. |