Another Shock

A severe earthquake occurred at 5 :50 a. m. Jan. 15, on Honshu, main island of the Japanese Empire, in approximately the same area as the Great Earthquake of last September (TIME, Sept. 10 et seq.). The amplitude of the shock, as registered by the seismograph at the Osaka Observatory, was two inches of lateral movement, or half that recorded for the Great Earthquake.

In the area of the quake, 30 lives were lost. Many hundreds of dwellings collapsed, chiefly those that were damaged in September or temporary habitations. Railways, roads, telephone and telegraph were put out of action in many places. Several fires broke out, but were soon extinguished. Water works and mains in Yokohama and Tokyo were broken, flooding streets and houses. Some piers were wrecked at Yokohama, but the damage to shipping was reported to have been negligible.

No American life was lost. J. J. Gray, Third Secretary of the U. S. Embassy, escaped death when his house collapsed by jumping from a window to a telephone pole. F. D. Leclere, another member of the Embassy staff, sprained his wrist by jumping from a window of the Imperial Hotel, 20 feet from the ground. Linden Wells of Los Angeles fractured his ankle in running out into the open. Most of the guests of the Imperial Hotel fled into the corridors at the first tremor, others rushed out into the streets with their clothes and dressed there. Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt and her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Kermit Roosevelt, present in the Imperial, "showed great calmness." Kermit Roosevelt, in Kioto, missed the thrilling experience.