Big Rattle

Fifty miles northeast of the Island of Hispaniola lies the Milwaukee Depth.* There the ocean's floor scoops down 30,246 ft. There, last week, the earth's crust ground silently against itself and distant seismographs marked the characteristic pattern of an earthquake on their sensitized film records.

The Dominican Republic had it worst. Like all the island's north coast the city of Matanzas got a hard jolting. But the tidal wave that followed the shock was the real killer as it swept into town and village. In one place, 40 cockfight fans were trapped under the collapsing tin roof of their circular pit and then drowned by the rush of water. Elsewhere, the nimble skipped to trees and rooftops. In Ciudad Trujillo, where people were celebrating the 450th anniversary of the city's founding by Columbus' brother, five churches were damaged and ordered closed.

At week's end, the Dominican Republic still shook. On the hills, refugees huddled under trees and in caves. Up to 73 had been killed; 20,000 were homeless. Next to Dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo himself, Dominicans had not known such disaster since 1930, when a hurricane swept the republic. Then, says an official biography, Trujillo appeased the angry weather gods. But now he was apparently too busy with politics (see below).

*Named after the U.S. light cruiser Milwaukee, whose officers discovered it with the sound gear in 1939.

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