The Earthquake in Costa Rica
A CORRESPONDENT at Jiminez, Costa Rica, under date of May 13, sends a few notes on the destructive earthquake which took place in Costa Rica. He writes that Senor Don Francisco Zanches, telegraph operator and postmaster at Jiminez, was at Tres Rios, just beyond Cartago, when the earthquake took place, on the fourth of May, at 6:50 o'clock in the evening. Cartago was the metropolis and birthplace of the republic; it is now in utter ruin. No building was left standing in the whole city save one railway station. The next morning 400 of the dead were dug out of the ruins. One thousand are reported dead in the city of Cartago alone. He estimates many more, because many bodies were burned. "Children were found heaps upon heaps. Four days after, two little boys were found still breathing." The hospitals are filled. On the night of the earthquake there were counted 69 shocks, and shocks continued frequently for four days afterward. Soldiers who were sent to the rescue to the number of 400 are said to have suffered death in the ruins. Vaults in the cemetery were rent, and the dead bodies were cast out. The president of the republic gave orders to burn the town in order to avert pestilence. The dead were buried in long trenches. Paraiso, a neighboring town east of Cartago, reported 105 deaths. Total loss in money is estimated at about $4,700,000 in gold. Clerks were found with pen in hand over their books; a merchant in his store with money in his hand, and the buyer with the goods. It brings to mind forcibly the scripture in Isaiah 24 when the whole earth shall reel to and fro; and the prophet tells us, "As with the buyer, so with the seller," and so it was in Central America. We pity the survivors. This, like other calamities of similar nature, is a warning to us that the earth is waxing old as doth a garment. Sometime the old garment will be folded away, and God will make all things new.