

GENERAL ACCOUNTS OF THE EARTHQUA&BS. 7 



GENERAL ACCOUNTS OF THE EARTHQUAKES. 



General accounts of the shocks began to appeal in the news- 

 papers of Burma about the 25th May, and in the Indian press a 

 few days later. The reports from Maymyo mentioned that nearly 

 every year about this time, the station in common with other towns 

 in Upper Burma is visited by an earthquake, the last big one being in 

 1908. At 3 a.m. on the morning of the 18th May 1912, the first Blight 

 (pake was noticed, but it did not cause much alarm. After that the 

 shocks continued at irregular intervals and witli varying inten- 

 sities. At 3 p.m. on the 21st there was a fairly severe shock and t In- 

 worst took place at about 9 a.m. on the morning of the 23rd, 

 causing a great deal of damage throughout the station. In the 

 open it could be heard approaching from a considerable distance, 

 the sound being like low thunder accompanied by the crash of 

 falling bricks and plaster wherever buildings were in the vicinity. In 

 Government House, Maymyo, wooden beams, bricks and plaster 

 came down. In the Club two chimneys and several portions of 

 the interior brick work fell, whilst nearly every fair-sized brick 

 building in the station suffered more or less severe damage. The 

 Alexandra Barracks seemed to have fared worst on the whole. 

 Several chimney stacks fell on to the roofs of the bungalows, 

 and many more had to be pulled down afterwards as they 

 were unsafe. In the administrative block of the station hospital 

 two chimney stacks came down, the veranda roof was ripped 

 oil' the family hospital, most of the married quarters were badly 

 damaged and four or five kitchens were wrecked. In the 

 Chaplain's house the greater part of the drawing room walls col- 

 lapsed. The Officers' mess of the Border Regiment was injured. 

 The Mohammedan mosque looked as if it had only just escaped 

 demolition, and an eye-witness said that the Baptist Church tower 

 only seemed to stand by a miracle, so great was the swaying. 

 On the Northern Shan States branch of the Burma Railways 

 between Nawnghkio and Hsum-hsai, at mile 451 (29 miles by rail 

 from Maymyo), 300 tons of earth fell from a rock cutting and 

 blocked the line. A little further on an embankment slipped and 

 fell 5 feet, and a section of the line running north and south was 

 bent in a curve to the east. Slight shocks continued throughout 

 the day and are described as being more like violent tremors than 

 waves. 



