Tsunami

has known no rest day or night since then and has been without assistance of any kind until the arrival on the coast of the Doctors and Nurses of our relief expedition.

It must have been almost superhuman effort for Nurse Cherry to make her way on foot all through the stricken area from Lamaline to Lawn a distance of twenty miles. Roads and bridges were swept away and she had to wade many of the streams en route. The weather was intensely cold with snow falling all the time. Her ministrations proved nothing less than providential to terror stricken and frightened women and children. She got through the District as quickly as possible sparing herself not at all and after rendering first aid in one settlement she moved on along until something had been done everywhere to help and to cheer the stricken.

Courage and devotion were required for the journey which was made right after the woeful destruction of the tidal wave with miles of desolation to be traversed at night and nobody just sure that the catastrophe would not be reenacted.

All day yesterday the Meigle sheltered at Lawn a Southeast storm with high seas and driving rain rendering communication with the shore almost impossible.

Toward evening the rain turned to sleet and there was nothing to do except wait until the dark and tempestuous night had passed. During a lull in the storm of the morning Nurse Cherry was taken onboard. She was almost in a state of collapse after her strenuous and self-sacrificing efforts. Despite her objections the expedition kept her with them and have taken her as far as Burin to enable her to recuperate. She returns to her District by the Argyle tomorrow…

PART THREE: AFTERMATH

17

APPALLING DISASTER ON SOUTH COAST

27 LIVES LOST AND 18 TOWNS AND VILLAGES SWEPT BY TIDAL WAVES FOLLOWING EATHQUAKE

PROPERTY LOSSES MAY EXCEED MILLION DOLLARS

From the South Coast of Newfoundland comes a tale of tragedy most appalling, following the earthquake of Monday evening 18^th. Owing to communications systems having been out of operation by the quake and storms, news of the tragedy was tardy in coming in, and the first intimation of the seriousness of the disaster was conveyed in a message to the Prime Minister from the captain of the S.S. Portia dated from Cape Race last Thursday, which read as follows: “Burin experienced very severe earth tremors 5:05 pm, tidal wave which swept everything waterfront, 16 dwelling houses with 9 lives mostly women and children gone, 4 bodies recovered. All communication of wire cut off. Report is that 18 lives were lost at Lord’s Cove and Lamaline.”

The Western Star

Nature showed no mercy to the people of the Burin Peninsula on the morning following the most harrowing event of their lives. November 19, 1929 dawned bitterly cold, and iciness seemed rooted deep in the earth. Soon snow fell, slowly at first and then thick and fast. Before long the villages of the peninsula were enveloped in a cold, cruel, blinding white. The wind howled like an angry husky dog at night, blowing the bodies of dead sheep into the waters of Lord’s Cove and Lamaline, and dashing teapots and broken dishes upon the rocks that hugged the shores of Burin and St. Lawrence. Pieces of lace curtain flew on the waves that the post- tsunami winds whipped up. If an airplane had been able to defy the winds and fly over the Burin Peninsula, its occupants would have seen clapboard floating like matchsticks and houses bobbing here and there, oddly, as if they were enjoying their sea-going excursion after decades of being anchored to land. Entire harbours were choked with the carcasses of cows, bulls, and goats, and with broken barns, wrecked fences, and dwellings cut in half by waves that had the sharpness of saws.

Meanwhile, wave-battered houses onshore sheltered greyfaced, hollow-eyed people who shivered at the sight of the snowflakes falling from the sky. These people were the homeless. Among their number were Patrick Rennie and his motherless sons of Lord’s Cove; David and Jessie Hipditch of Point au Gaul who had lost their three children; William and Carrie Brushett and their children of Kelly’s Cove; Vincent Kelly, who had lost his wife, Frances, and daughter, Dorothy, to the tidal wave; the widower, Joseph Cusack, of St. Lawrence; and numerous families in the severely stricken communities of Taylor’s Bay in the south and Port au Bras in the north.

Tragedy was general on the lower half of the Burin Peninsula following the tsunami. So was confusion. The Corner Brook Western Star was not unique as it laboured to determine the extent of the damage and loss of life. In the days immediately after the quake the Burin Peninsula was virtually cut off from the rest of the country and the world. In turn, Newfoundland itself was unable to communicate with the outside because of the tidal wave and the damage it wrought. The Bay Roberts Cable Station reported that cable lines between Newfoundland and New York were damaged and inoperable. The cable ships Lord Kelvin and Cyrus Field located the cable breaks 360 miles south of St. John’s. There were twenty-eight breaks in more than 212 oceanic cables near the epicentre of the quake. The French government had its own cables—three in total—and these, too, were broken. Fifty new miles of cable would be required to make the repairs at a cost of $400,000 in 1929 dollars. The French estimated that the repairs would take no less than two years.

Within the country, the main means of transportation was boat. Thus, sea travel and wireless would have to be relied upon to convey information about the effects of the tsunami in the towns and villages of the Burin Peninsula. One of those eager to get the message out was George Bartlett, owner of a large general store in the town of Burin. Bartlett’s store would go down in legend because of what happened to it on the night of November 18, 1929. The store was housed in a building fifty-five feet by thirty feet, anchored on a concrete foundation. There were no witnesses to the event, but Bartlett’s store had turned 180 degrees and travelled two hundred feet that strange night. Amazingly, the building was not destroyed; it landed in a neighbour’s yard, right up against their house, completely intact. Even more remarkable was the fact that not one item inside the store, including dishes, lamps, and inkwells, was broken or even disturbed.

Two days later, Bartlett took pen to paper to alert Newfoundland’s prime minister of the gravity of the situation facing his neighbours.

Burin North, Nov. 20, 1929

Right Hon. Sir Richard Squires K.C.M.G.,

Prime Minister

Dear Sir:-

This is to acquaint you of a terrible disaster that has overtaken Burin and adjacent settlements, and to appeal to you and your Cabinet to send help quickly. All the waterfront of Great Burin consisting of stores and stages were swept away with all fishing gear and provisions for the winter. Burin proper all the waterfront is damaged more or less I myself have lost considerably but of that I will not mention.

Port au Bras had been cleaned out nothing left standing except a few houses, there has been a loss of seven lives at that place. Foots Cove all waterfront gone with loss of three lives. Rock Harbour has been swept also, I hear also that St. Lawrence is swept clean but as the telegraph lines are down we cannot hear. The S.S. Daisy has gone there and no doubt you will get a full report from them. After the quake a tidal wave of about 15 feet swept this part of the coast and you know what that meant when all stores etc, are only built about five feet above high