As far as the capital was concerned, the earthquake, though arming and terrifying in its occurrence, was a minor ill. It is true that buildings collapsed or cracked, and that the loss of life over the huge area that the city covers mounted to a huge total, but, had the disaster ended with the earthquake, it would now more or less have passed into me-mary as one of the worst experienced in a century. But, simultaneously with the earthquake, which brought every one into the-open and kept them there for fear of repetition, the rumour already being active that more and worse was due, fires started in various parts of the city, and in the dry hot wind following earlier typhoon rain squalls and owing to the absence of water, little could be or was done at the outset to extinguish the flames.
By six in the evening the fire had caught such a hold that it required more than ordinary means to put it out, and troops were called out to use dynamite and axes.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.