An Earthquake in Mitylene.
A THOUSAND PERSONS PERISH.
MITYLENE, or Mytilene, is an island of the Grecian Archipelago, belonging to Turkey. It lies near the coast of Asia Minor, and contains an area equal to almost half of Wayne county, in Mich. Its population is 40,000. The principal town bears the same name as its island, and it was there that upon March 6th the awful earthquake occurred. At six in the evening of that day a shock was suddenly felt, lasting eighteen or twenty seconds, followed almost directly by another, longer and more violent. The sea, it is said, heaved and boiled into and out of the ports, and in the little town whole blocks of solid stone buildings reeled and fell together, like houses of cards. The castle, the cathedral, the Governor’s kiosk, the prison, the mosques, and the consular residences all more or less shared the ruin. The dwellings were largely built of squared volcanic stone, taken from ancient edifices; yet they all fell together; nay, the effect of the overthrow was the greater on account of their very solidity. It is said that from 800 to 1,000 persons have perished in the capital of the island, and that as many more have been maimed. Among the island villages there has also been much loss of life; and, whether true or not, it is reported that at one point the earth really opened and swallowed up a whole broad belt of dwellings close by the sea’s edge. It is also related that at this particular point there is a subsidence of the ground, which has let the sea right in, many fathoms deep, over what was formerly a busy and prosperous quarter of the little town. Shocks more or less severe, were felt on the 7th and 8th over a part of the Levant and in some of the Ægean islands. Smyrna, Magnesia, Adramiti, Aivali, Gallipoli, and Constantinople itself have been more or less shaken. But Mitylene suffered the most cruelly; and after the catastrophe the inhabitants all fled from their residences and were obliged to live in the open air, or under tents, stricken down by sorrow and terror. Hunger next came to add to their misery; the calamity had been so sweeping that they had not even the necessaries of life. A French gunboat and an Austrian Lloyd’s steamer landed some biscuits and stores among the despairing people; but the extent of the misfortune is such that only the most energetic action on the part of the Turks at Smyrna and Constantinople can save many of those that are houseless from starvation.