The Scotsman - Friday, 20th April 1906, page 5

m . ™™ CO DOOMED FIEE STILL RAGING

HOPE ABANDONED. [FBOM THE "DAILY TEIEGEAIH" COBBESPOKDBNT.] . , NET?' Yofe, April 19, Morning. MOST .unhappily tho first accounts of the appalling disaster which has laid the business quarter of San Francisco in ruins, and entailed a sacrifica or an as yet uncounted number of lives, were by ao laeftns exaggerated. The details which I vas able to cable to the Daily Telegraph yesterday are corroborated in every respect, and the telegrams received to-day emphasise the awful character of the disaster. As regards the number of fatalities , it will be impossible to give any precise facts for some days , but it is hoped, and, indeed, believed , at the time of cabling, that the total will l a considerably below 1000. It is true that some estimates go as high as 2000,, and even more, while others go to the opposite esfcreme. After mcsfc carerol introiry, however , and allowing for possible exaggerations put tho total at any figure between 500 and 700. The details of the disaster which has reduced nearly half the metropolis of the Pacific Coast to ruins may be summed up briefly. Tho firsti shock was felt at thirteen minutes after ive o'clock on Wednesday morning, and a second shock came three 'hours later. The business part of thfe <aty , covering eight square miles and consisting of about two hundred squares of buildings, was wrecked. The residential portion of the city was shaken, but not badly damaged. The citizens rushed into the streets in panic. As fire broke out at various points tee Fire Department discovered that the entire water system was ruined, and there was DO means with which to tight the flames. The offices of tha San. Prcncwo Oatt, the Examiner , the postal telegraph, the "Western Union, the telephone, the Rialto, the Mutual Life , and nearly every modem business building in the city were vrrecbed to a greater or less extent , and left in the path of the flames, wliidi were swept onwards by a fierce west wind. General Funston ordered the troops to parado, and martial law was declared. In the absence &f te-aier ,' recourse was had to dynamite to check the flames: The fire chief, Mr Sullivan , was killed while directing his men, and soldiers and policemen were injured while using giant pon-dor to blow np buildings . Mayor Schmitz has appointed a Relief Committee of fifty prominent citizens, and established his headquarters in the Hall of Justice, the City Hall having collapsed. The ferry docks slipped into the waterand panicstricken inhabitants were forced to escape from the city in tugs furnished by the Union Pacific Railroad. A view from the top of Telegraph Hill showed twenty-five fires blazing in various parts of the city. Such in brief is an outline of the disaster, which no words can exaggerate , and the details as filled in to-day make the complete picture still more appalling. It is one of the ironies of the sibi&tion; ' tka^'although telegraph communicati on was described as utterly broken down , every paper in America to-day has columns upon columns of descriptive accounts from special correspondents at San Francisco. The explanation is that the telegrams , although written by representatives at the Golden City, are really dispatched from distant Suburbs, and hi some cases from towns miles away. These accounts naturall y differ great.lv. and in some cases are very fragmentary , but it is abundantl y clear on readine tLem in mass that the greatest earthquake in the history of the United States has taken place, and the damage will undoubtedly amount to a tremendous sum. Several experts after a cursory glance round the devastated city at eleven o'clock this morning put the total at £-30, 000 ,000 , but exact figures in the case of property as of life are impossible to get at tlie present timo. Even now fires are still raging, and the insurance companies, which will not suffer by the earthquake, are beginning to get very restive. In a sentence one can say, what with the ' earthquake and the fire, about all the business quarter of this prosperous and enterprising city has gone. Although the whole city was shaken up, tLe great damage bv the earthquake was limited to the low ' and ' made " lands which lie between the hills of' ban Francisco , and which are occupied by business buildings and warehouses, and in the southern part by cheap tenements. Happening as it did at. five o'clock in the morning, the earthquake caused practically no loss of life among the business houses, but the tenement dwellings, and especially the cheap lodging-houses , suffered severely. Directly afterwards fire started in seven or eight places, and was aided by the broken gas mains. The water system failed, and all through the day the fire was fought with dynamite. The Palace and 5t Franc's Hotels, where isost tourists stay, escaped tne earthquake , although the Palace was destroyed afterwards by fire, Almost all the largest buildings in Sai-Francisco are lost. These inclwie' the magnificent City Hall, the new Post Office; the CaR newspaper building, twenty storeys high, the Parrott "building, which' houses the largest universal stores in the West, tho Grand Opera House, and St Ignatius Cathedral . There are conflicting. reports about the fate of the Mutual Life building, the Chronicle building, the new Merchants ' Exchange , and some o ( the others. The city remain! under close martial law, the whole regular garrison of the city and a resiimeTi'i; of militia, being on guard. It is probable that most of the better-class residential district, situated on the hills, escaped, and that the loss of life fell almost yitird.y &tt tli^ poor tsacmoirfc quarter , alcnri; one-third of the area of the city, and that most closely congested part was ravaged by the earthquake and swept by the fire. [FBOM TOE " DAILY . TEMGEArB'S" STEGM COBRESPONDEXT.], SAM FEANCISCO, April 19. The magnitude of the disaster grows hourly. Flames are still raging in the section .of the city wrecked yesterday morning, and later dispatenes tell of the spread of the fire into district^ which escaped the full havoc of the earthquake shocks-TLat -the loss of Tiroperty -inll reacL upwards of £35,000,000 seems highly probable. No human agency seems able to cope with the flames, and even the destruction of hundreds of buildings by dynamite to stop the flight of the fire has been unavailing, for the flames leap over the gaps made-by the explosions and spread with alarming rapidity. Estimates of the loss of life .still vary. Five IrandTed people have almost certainly perished, and it may prove that thousands have met an awful death. - No way near an exact list of the dead will probably ever be obtained, .as many bodies are believed to have been cremated in the burned buildings. .:- _.:, - . The entire city seems doomed, as the names are spreading in a dozen directions in the residential section. , . .. . ' -' . - laefc night hundreda of :firemen and re&-cuers were. prostrated by the strain of their continual fight since early morning. ; In the crowds at .many points; people fainted,. and in some instances dropped dead of shock. . ' At the Mechanics' Pavilion, scenes of heroism, and later on of panic, were enacted. The great building was turned; into a hospital ^ with^atbrps of filt^ p hysicans.: and

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