Word of the Yokohama fire was received from the Japanese radio station at Iwaki to the Radio Corporation of America’s local station. It says; "Conflagration occurred subsequent to severe earthquake at Yokohama on Saturday. Practically whole city ablaze. Numerous casualties."
Apparently all land lines in the north-eastern section of Japan are down.
Tokio has been swept by fire, and the death roll in the city alone is said to be incalculable.
31 NSW miners caught in fire
One of the worst mine disasters in the history of Australia has happened at the Bellbird Colliery, Cessnock.
On Saturday afternoon fire broke out and cut off 31 men from the surface. The news quickly spread, and the pit mouth was crowded with relatives of those imprisoned and with volunteers for rescue work.
Rescuers entered the mine, and fighting their way by inches against the fumes, brought out seven men, only two of whom were alive. Soon eight more corpses were brought up.
Rescue work has now become very dangerous. Dense volumes of smoke are pouring from the air shaft, but the number of volunteers is undiminished.
After a conference between the managers and employees it was unanimously agreed that further attempts at rescue would be futile, as all in the mine must be dead, and the work of sealing the tunnel will be pushed on with all haste.
New tram for Highgate line
Within a week or two a new electric car should be running on the Maori Hill line. This is one of the city trams which is to be taken up on to the hill.
The undercarriage was towed up there by a cable car after the passenger cars had stopped running on Saturday night, and the body of the car is to be taken up on a lorry. It will not take long to reassemble the tram, as the work of adjusting it to suit the different gauge of the Maori Hill line has been carried out at the car sheds.
The city gauge is 4 feet and the Maori Hill gauge is 3ft 6in.
Caution needed changing trams
Common sense at least should warn people that it is a dangerous practice to alight from the electric car at the Maori Hill Junction without first looking to see if the down cable car is approaching. Yet when the electric tram stops at the junction there is often a wild scramble to see who can get off first, and discretion is cast to the winds.
One young man who attempted to alight in the conventional manner on Saturday afternoon was carried away on the tide of frenzied humanity just as a down cable car bore down upon him. In spite of the repeated warnings from the bell, there was an utter disregard of danger, and the young man was jostled against the moving cable car and received a severe blow which sent him sprawling.
Beyond a slight cut in the head and a few minor abrasions, however, he was not hurt to any extent. One sympathetic onlooker asked the victim how on earth he managed to do such a thing and "why didn’t he keep a sharp look-out?"
Apparently the youth placed little value on the questions, for no answer was forthcoming. — ODT, 3.9.1923
Compiled by Peter Dowden
