20 STUART : THU SRIMANGAL EARTHQUAKE OF 8TH JULY 1918. 
movement. After the initial tremble a noise could be heard distinctly 
approaching from the direction of the Teesta bridge, growing in 
intensity until the vertical movement was experienced, when it 
resembled the sound made by a quick-firing gun of large calibre. 
It was the second lateral movement that caused the fall of those 
buildings which entirely collapsed and of the walls which fell in the 
buildings that were damaged. I did not visit Brahmanbaria, but 
the damage there was said to have been considerable, most buildings 
being cracked and several having collapsed. 
In Kishorganj the damage done was also considerable. The 
Sub-divisional Officer's house was thrown down and als'o the First 
and Second Munsifs' houses. The jail was practically demolished, 
the northern wall fell bodily to the north, and the buildings within 
the jail collapsed. The southern wall and the entrance gate were 
very badly shattered and in places thrown down, and the remaining 
walls badly cracked. The Public Library fell bodily towards the 
east, and the two schools were badly cracked, and in places portions 
of the walls had fallen. The railway bridge just to the north of 
Kishorganj station had its abutments cracked and the girders per- 
manently moved nearly eighteen inches in a southerly direction over 
the southern pier. The length of the bridge seems to have been 
permanently shortened by the amount mentioned. 
In addition to the above many other houses in the bazaar were 
shattered and partly thrown down. On the other hand the Munsif's 
court and well-built houses were unharmed, and the railway station 
was only cracked in one place owing to subsidence of the bank on 
which it is built, and was not injured directly by the shock. The 
reason for Kishorganj having suffered so greatly seems to have been 
the extreme weakness of some of its buildings. The Jail and the 
bungalows of both the Sub-divisional Officer and the Munsifs were 
brick-and-mud buildings, not brick and mortar, and the mud was so 
sandy and contained so little clay that on being touched with the 
finger it ran like the sand in an hour-glass. The few good masonry 
and brick buildings that existed were unharmed by the earthquake. 
An exceedingly interesting phenomenon was noticed in the com- 
pound of the Munsif's court. A long stack of loose bricks about 
four feet wide and nearly five feet high stretched for a length of 120 
feet in a north and south direction along the west of the compound. 
The bricks had fallen in places along the western face of this stack, 
not all the way along the face but at definite intervals, there being 
