JAPAN: Ripsnorter

Vast geologic forces stir in the Tuscarora Deep, a submarine trench facing Japan. Last week a section of the ocean floor gave way, creating a violent tremor. Ten-foot seismic waves of water thundered toward the main home island of Honshu, raced up the funnel neck of Kii Strait, dealt sleeping villages across 60,000square miles six shattering blows in three hours. Tokyo newspapers called it the worst disaster since the great earthquake of September 1923, which killed 143,000. Said famed Fordham Seismologist Father Joseph J. Lynch: “A ripsnorter.”

About 650 Japanese were killed, 800 injured; 6,800 homes were destroyed, 11,000 damaged, 24,000 flooded; 2,100 vessels were wrecked. Among the villages hit; Usa, famed for its prewar exports of Christmas toys stamped “Made in U.S.A.”